music is already free

Dear Music Industry,

There's something you need to understand, and you don't seem to be getting it. Someone has to tell you, and they have to say it in no uncertain terms.

Stop arguing that music cannot be free. Stop it. It doesn't matter what your justification is, whether it's that the Radiohead model (as it is apparently now known) devalues music for other, less wealthy bands, or whether it's just plain thievery, and nothing else should matter, it's irrelevant.

I'll say it slowly, because I'm obviously not talking to the smart kids: MUSIC. IS. ALREADY. FREE.

We can't go back in time. Bandwidth and Compression made Apple a force in it's industry again. These technological changes made file sharing reasonable. And it made free plausible, not as a business model, but as a reality that cannot be ignored.

It doesn't matter if you can't work your old business model in a world where music is free. It doesn't matter if you feel it devalues your work. It doesn't matter if you think this paradigm only rewards the ultra rich, or those with a dedicated fan base who will spend money without needing to, or whether it just plain bothers you.

Music is already free. The genie is not going back in the bottle, because the holy triumvirate of bittorrent, bandwidth, and compression all have legitimate uses. And not in the NRA style 'guns are for protection, too' legitimate use, but there are entire business models that are only viable due to these innovations.

Music is free. You can't change that, you have to work with it. Radiohead decided that might be an idea - ACCEPTING REALITY - and hoping that, considering it would leak anyway, a portion of fans would be willing to give them a couple of bucks for something that, within minutes of release, WAS FREE ANYWAY.

I'm sorry that a lot of people, Music Industry, are caught in a transitional period where old ways are failing and new ways are undefined. I'm sorry that old revenue streams are falling by the wayside. I'm sorry that so many of you equate changing sources of money with doom.

But it doesn't matter if I'm sorry.

Because music is already free, and you can't change that will anything, even an endless parade of frivolous lawsuits.

With more than a modicum of disappointment,

The Broken Gentleman