Blacklabel is a mailing list dedicated to promoting the independent music scene. While the term "indie" has been around forever, the behavior of the Recording Industries Association of America has given the word a renewed legitimacy. This list hopes to help music lovers find alternative sources for their favorite music, discuss the independent scene, and discover new artists.
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What is wrong with the RIAA, anyway? In theory, nothing -- it is an association funded by member record labels to lobby congress for laws beneficial to the industry. But in practice, just about everything is wrong with the RIAA. Since its inception the RIAA has resorted to price-fixing, collusion with the retail outlets and radio stations, and the illegal intimidation of their own customer base, all with the aim of sustaining the artificial inflation of the cost of retail music.
What doesn't the RIAA understand? That the real cost of acquiring music has been following a downward trend since the beginning, and that this downward trend is directly and inversely proportional to advances in recording and distribution technology. In the middle ages, you had to pay someone to play, and when they were done, they were done -- you'd have to pay them again to hear the music again. By the beginning of the 20th century, you could spend a fortune on a radio and a record player and another fortune on some vinyl, but you could listen as often as you liked. By the end of the 20th century, cassettes and CDs were ubiquitous and cheap, but had a cost associated with physical reproduction. And today, with high-bandwidth networks and better compression technologies, the physical costs are almost nothing. Thus the cost of distribution is asymptotically approaching zero -- yet the RIAA still believes that an hour of music is worth almost $20 in 2004, and is engaging in every trick, legal or otherwise, to maintain that price.
What is going to happen? The RIAA may someday be forced to adapt and accept that a free market is unwilling to bear prices as high as $20 for CDs of arguably marginal quality and burdened with Digital Rights Management restrictions that deny the purchaser even those rights guaranteed under copyright Fair Use laws. Either the RIAA will change their confusing and counter-intuitive approach of attacking their customers, or they will be replaced over time with organizations that actually do assist the artists and their labels. But until that time, this list, as well as the resources mentioned below, can help the rest of us find alternatives in truly independent music.
What can you do? Support local unsigned bands -- go to their shows, buy their self-produced albums at their tables. Buy music from bands signed to independent labels. Buy from the artist or the label directly if you can, as that is the best way to ensure that the highest percent of the purchase price goes to the people involved with the production of the album. If you must buy music released on an RIAA label, buy it second-hand, preferably from a local independent music store. While the artist won't see a percentage of this sale, neither will the label that is willfully paying dues to the RIAA. And by buying locally you indirectly support your community's music scene and those who love it. And help spread the word that we can make a difference by avoiding RIAA labels and supporting the independent artists.
What can't you do? Rip music and distribute it online without express permission of the copyright holder. No matter what you personally feel about copyright law, violating it doesn't help the independent music scene at all -- it simply gives the RIAA another excuse to harass, subpoena, and sue their customers rather than adapting to a new era. There are great alternatives out there -- the RIAA doesn't have a total monopoly after all. And at the end of the day, remember that the artist makes the final call -- if they decide to sign with an RIAA label, then that is their right. We simply have the right to listen to something else.
How can you find and support independent music? This mailing list offers a great place for people to post reviews and news of albums or shows. If you can, go hear a band live -- for some bands this is the only cash they ever see from their music -- and if they are selling CDs, buy one if you can. And if you are buying an album online or in a store, check with the RIAA Radar site to be sure that you are buying from an independent label.
Is there good independent music? Dear lord, yes. Some of the best labels out there are independent. Sub Pop (The Shins, SDRE, Rapture), Epitaph (Atmosphere, Tom Waits), Matador (Interpol, Pavement, New Pornographers), Lookout Records (Ted Leo, The Donnas), Barsuk (Death Cab For Cutie, Nada Surf), Kill Rock Stars (Elliot Smith, The Decemberists) -- the list goes on and on.
Some sites to check out:
www.magnetbox.com/riaa - verify that an album is RIAA-safe
www.boycott-riaa.com - fighting the good fight
www.downhillbattle.org/riaa - anti-RIAA activism
www.chillingeffects.org - a cease and desist clearinghouse
www.blacklabel-records.com - not related to this list, but RIAA-free!
www.riaa.com - what we're up against