Submitted by Paul Jennings, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin

Idea posted December 16, 2002

Statement: I still say recorded music is too expensive.

Response: First, I will agree that recorded music is expensive. But it is expensive at both ends. This morning, I spent 4 hours with our string players. In that room were 10 players from a top symphony, and they were playing instruments that cost them (I gasp) hundreds of thousands of dollars. OK, millions. There was a Strad in the room and the first viola player was testing a new instrument. Price tag - $300,000. You won't believe what he will have to go through to get it.

And considering that this session was one small part of one little musical for one small market, it was expensive. Not a complaint, just a reality check. (Yes, a market made up of K-8 music teachers is very small in comparison to the market of everyone who listens to NSync.) Imagine what it takes to pay a big orchestra for a session. The CDs you buy cost much more than just what it costs to duplicate them.

Does it frighten and annoy me to know that the music that I just spent many thousands to record could be freely traded on Napster? You betchya! Is that stealing? Yep, no other word for it.

It's easy to make it distant and think that all of the music industry is "the big guys." It isn't. No matter who the artist or label or producer is, someone had to spend money to bring you this music. Lots of it.

The laws and the morality of it are simple: if you copy music you don't own without permission from the person who produced it, you are breaking the law, and you are in turn making it harder to make more new music. It is just like stealing a car, robbing a bank, or leaving a restaurant without paying for the meal you just ate.

Now... are there ways to experience music more inexpensively? Sure. Check out the Internet used venues and the auctions such as eBay. Or, if you are really into the "free download" thing, download to your heart's content - but if you find that you are listening to something more than once, buy the CD legally. If you listen and don't like it, then it's sort of like radio.

Just remember that for every big star there are lots of people just barely making a living in music, just living paycheck to paycheck. Making a living in music is tough. Napster supports no one except the people who invested in the company... and they have nothing to do with music. None of that money goes to the artists... sort of like all of the money from illegal photocopying going to the copier and paper companies, not to the people who wrote the music or published it.

But don't get me started. Sorry for the rant... this hits close to home.

(Noting that while Napster isn't a factor now, lots of others are.)