File sharing...Part Two

There are no easy answers. For each answer, more questions arise; more questions, more answers.

I have been exposed to more music than I could ever have imagined from around the world. I've stumbled across artists whose music I love that are not found on amazon or itunes or any other commercial vehicle. There is no other way I would have ever experienced them. For those artists, file sharing is a boon in terms of exposure (though how that translates into income is another story). And through blogs and other methods of exposure, like minded individualists present music they have discovered into realms of exposure only possible via the worldwide web. It's an amazing thing.

I remember watching a documentary about this debate and in some South American city where a counterpoint was being presented, artists (in this case DJs) gave their music away because what they wanted was for people to come see them perform live. And when other artists remixed and reinterpreted their music, it only promoted their name even more so 'bootlegging' wasn't frowned upon. It was about the exposure. Yet the end result - the income - wasn't the recorded music; the end result was the live performance.

The other issue is that a lot of the music that I've come to enjoy is not stuff consumed by the masses so it is expensive to obtain. A prime example is the Headz compilations on the Mo' Wax label. I've tried but to obtain either the CD or the LP versions gets well over $50 for each of the three compilations. Now, to obtain a ripped version for free or to pay well over $50 for used (since they are out of print), the decision is pretty easy.

Is it ethical to have to pay such an exorbitant price for music? Are there ethics in the means of distribution of product?

These Headz compilations contain some of my favorite music by artists I've grown to enjoy. Most of the Mo' Wax stuff is rare and out of print and thus expensive to obtain. In a nutshell, I can't afford it. Are we back to the desire thing, learning to live without?

On one level, it comes down to basic economics. If it is not consumed by the masses, it probably won't remain in print very long. The more rare or obscure the music, the less time it spends in the marketplace and thus the more expensive it becomes to obtain. There is then a market not for the music but for the product. 'OOP' is a big tag on ebay. It isn't about the music; it is about being rare. Rare = profit.

Perhaps here is justification for 99 cent downloads as it can be rare, even impossible, to find a downloadable (i.e. bootlegged) version of much of this music online.

But with everything going digital, there will continue to be value not in the music but in the product. The vinyl market is fairly hot right now, at least to the connoisseur. But vinyl carries a pretty hefty price tag. You pay for the medium, not the message. If I paid $20 or more for some of this vinyl, I'd hate to listen to it.

So the battle rages on as the universe adapts to the information age, everything reduced to its basic component which is the bit, which is basically 'nothing' and is pure information. What price information?

What ethics are there in information?