Paying for music

A blog post by an NPR intern, Emily White, explains that while she has 11,000 songs in her music collection, she has only ever bought 15 CDs. She has, she says, no attachment to physical media.

I wish I could say I miss album packaging and liner notes and rue the decline in album sales the digital world has caused. But the truth is, I've never supported physical music as a consumer. As monumental a role as musicians and albums have played in my life, I've never invested money in them aside from concert tickets and T-shirts.

It seems to me she is confusing physical media with paying for something she readily admits she enjoys. But let's set that aside for the moment. What's the bottom line for her?

What I want is one massive Spotify-like catalog of music that will sync to my phone and various home entertainment devices. With this new universal database, everyone would have convenient access to everything that has ever been recorded, and performance royalties would be distributed based on play counts (hopefully with more money going back to the artist than the present model). All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?

That's a beautiful vision, up to the last couple of sentences. As for those last sentences, well, how fucking entitled can you get?

If you don't like enriching giant agro-corporations, does that entitle you to take food at the store?

Tell me, Emily, since that Utopian infinite music library you envision doesn't exist yet, how exactly do you expect those musicians you love to earn a living today?

I don't get this mentality that if you can steal, it's okay. And what really gets me is pretending that you're not stealing, that you're trying to make a better world.

What absolute horseshit.

As I've grown up, I've come to realize the gravity of what file-sharing means to the musicians I love. I can't support them with concert tickets and T-shirts alone. But I honestly don't think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.

More succinctly: "I like what you do. I just can't be bothered to pay for it."

You may have gotten older, Emily, but you haven't "grown up". Adults pay for what they want.