According to the slightly quixotic yet ever-so-appreciated bloggers at the Boycott RIAA" website, the RIAA filed some more lawsuits the other day, and it remained largely under the mainstream media radar. Maybe the RIAA's uniquely aggressive, blisteringly counterintuitive way of doing business has become more commonplace since a half-decade ago when Lars Ulrich first rallied the anti file-sharing troops with the piercing whine that formerly drowned out by his legendarily competent drumming skills (for more on this whine, rent Some Kind of Monster, and be prepared to gouge your eyes out for ever having taken Metallica seriously, even as a middle-school metalhead.) Or maybe a conspiracy is truly afoot. But regardless of why the news of newest batch of suits didn't get dispersed very far, the venerable ran an article on February 2nd that discussed fan reaction to the file-sharing phenomenon.

The bluntly titled article, Music Fans Tell Industry: Cut Prices, Make Better Music, may be proof that some semblance of sanity exists on this crazy floating rock we call Earth, so let's hope if aliens descend upon the planet to judge its worth, they bump into an average citizen instead of a record executive.

The article begins:

While one-quarter of the nation's music fans say they've downloaded songs onto their computers — legally or otherwise — a new nationwide poll suggests music executives should look elsewhere to explain their business woes.

Three in every four fans complain that compact discs are too expensive, and 58% complain that music in general is getting worse, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine.

Well, no kidding. Finally someone comes out and say it. People (at least 58% of those polled, anyway) are sick of being peddled pre-fab tripe at outrageous prices, and file-sharing is, more than anything, a tool of consumer choice. It allows a consumer to make an informed decision about what s/he wants to spend his/her money on - a decision that may be based on ethical, aethetic, or financial factors. Those record labels who would profit off of your inability to make that choice - the choice to only go out and buy something if you're firmly assured that you like it, of course, don't particularly care for that.

Unfortunately, according to the article, people tend to be a little less libertine about the prospect of free file-sharing for all (and I'd suggest that they check out the EFF's systemic proposal for making sure that artists get paid while file-sharing continues undisturbed.) - the article features some illuminating quotes:

The poll found that 80% of people consider downloading music for free without the copyright holder's permission to be stealing. People who actually download are less apt to consider it stealing, but there's evidence that many fans accept the iTunes business model. The poll found that 71% of music fans believe that a 99 cents a song is a fair price or outright bargain.

"They shouldn't be able to do it illegally," said Mickey Johnson, 41, from Charleston, Tenn. "That's art. Somebody is putting their art out there. They should be compensated for it. It's just like Picasso or something."

I could, of course, site all of the bands who put their music up for free on Myspace and share their music on file-sharing networks specifically to generate interest (and a lot of these bands are a heck of a lot more concerned with being "artists" than a few major label has-beens trying to ring cash out of a dying career.) Instead I'll address the analogy directly by linking to this picture of Picasso's The Old Guitarist, which you may feel free to purchase if you'd like, or simply to take a moment to look at and enjoy. Indeed, it is somebody putting their art out there, and it is just like Picasso. Woody Guthrie and Picasso - both artists who are equally dead, are not seeing a thin dime from the sale of their artwork anyway - and I don't think anyone would argue that you shouldn't be able to look at a copy of a Picasso before forking over 12 bucks + tax + shipping and handling to a poster company to get a reproduction of it.

The rest of the article abounds with interesting quotes and various permutations of the digital rights controversy - IPods vs. CDs, downloading for free vs. downloading from ITunes, and even Rock 'n' Roll vs. Rap (luckily, Anthrax's Attack of the Killer Bees squelched this false dichotomy for me when I was 11 years old.)

But when it comes to sinking sales for major record labels, those polled can't seem to quite agree on the cause:

Overall, music fans were split on why music sales have been declining for the past five years: 33% said it was because of illegal downloads, 29% said it was because of competition from other forms of entertainment, 21% blamed it on the quality of music getting worse and 13% said it was because CDs are too expensive.

Here I give you a testimonial - the near ubiquitous cry of indie-music enthusiasts nationwide - "I buy more CDs and records (yes, vinyl ones) than any ten people, and I still believe firmly in file-sharing." I'm just not dropping $20 bucks on the latest disc gruntingly squeezed out of the American Idle (homonym: used purposefully) pre-fab corporate brownie factory. Those CDs are nothing like Picasso. Does not wanting to buy terrible music at an exorbitant cost make me that much of an iconoclast? What about wanting to make informed decisions on what I spend my money on? To partially appropriate the title of a Jello Biafra spoken word album - "If good taste in music is outlawed, only outlaws will have good taste in music."

Maybe part of the problem can be found in the antepenultimate graph of the USA Today article:

FM radio is still the main way most fans find out about new music, according to the poll. Television shows are a distant second.

This raises the question of what "most fans" listen to after they've tired of the 3 or 4 songs that get played repeatedly on any FM radio station.