IP Democracy: Musician: Copy-Protection Hurts Me

An op-ed piece in today’s New York Times by Damian Kulash Jr., who is the lead singer for a band called OK Go makes the case that copy protection embedded in CDs hurts musicians, or at least those trying to make it to the big time. “It’s much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD’s sitting on a shelf and not being played,” Kulash writes.

Kulash is actually touching on a much bigger trend that seems to be affecting all intellectual property. A certain amount of free, unfettered access is actually good for business. The rise of the open Internet and the abundant amount of access to written, filmed or recorded content actually spurs sales, as many writers, artists and filmmakers have discovered.

The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it’s Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn’t do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can’t transfer to your iPod is a record you’re less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on December 6, 2005 9:59 AM to IP Democracy