WHY I WANT YOU TO PIRATE MY MUSIC…

You can steal something in plain sight. I know that now. 

How do I know? Because, I’ve actually lived it. My children have lived it. My wife has lived it. And, to be honest, they don’t even know they’ve lived it. All they know is dad has had to make some creative deals a few times, to keep the house. 

They know they aren’t rich, although they aren’t sure why. Everything surrounding their father indicates that they should be rich. But, somehow, they are not. 

My wife has been a loyal supporter of my stupid career for multiple decades. But even she – with inside information – doesn’t really know what happened. All she feels is the disappointment and the stress of tightening the belt to make things work financially. 

I promised her, a long time ago, that if she would stick with me, and some very specific things happened, she would never have to worry about money and I would give her a comfortable life. ALL – EVERY SINGLE ONE – of those specific things happened…multiple times. And we’ve had some good years. But now all she sees is a man who didn’t completely make good on his promise. 

“What a loser,” you may be saying to yourself (regarding me). And I can’t promise you I’m not a loser in some areas of my life. However…

For informational purposes, I’m a singer/songwriter by trade. It’s how I’ve made a living for the past 30 years. I’m not someone who took a shot and didn’t make it. No. I made it. 

I had my first number one radio song (on christian radio) when I was 26. And I had another one, every six months, for the next 8 years. I left that profession to strike out as a pop recording artist. And got signed to the largest record label on the planet (Universal), to much fan fare and acclaim, scoring a top 20 hit on the Billboard charts. 

That career got de-railed by an extraordinary turn of events (chronicled in a book and being adapted to a screenplay). But at the end of that journey, I entered the American Idol songwriting competition and won it. The song I wrote for it became one of the biggest pop hits of the decade and stayed at number one for a record breaking 16 weeks. 

No. I’m not a loser. I am, by definition, a winner. You literally cannot do more than I’ve done in the music industry. I’ve been to the top of almost all the mountains and conquered almost all the worlds there are to conquer there. 

This isn’t meant to be a brag session. It is simply context for what I’m about to say. I want it well established that this isn’t some sour grapes, bitch session from someone who just couldn’t make it happen. I’m not some Starbucks employee/weekend performer who can’t seem to break through. 

I was buying real estate with song royalties in the early 90’s. And let me tell you, it was hard to make that happen even back then…when it was easy. Now, it isn’t hard anymore. It is impossible. And let me tell you why…

Something started happening in the late 90’s that brought the music business to its knees: pirating. This little thing called Napster and “file sharing” started cutting in on the actual business being done. And there was virtually no way to stop it. 

The music business filed lawsuits and tried to educate people and generally made a ruckus. But you cannot compete with free. Free is undefeated. 

Some well-meaning players joined the fight. Steve Jobs introduced an entire line of hardware AND software, to create a new purchase model – iTunes. And that stemmed the bleeding a little bit. It at least created a structure. But it was a stop-gap measure along the way to the final destination we all saw coming a mile away…streaming. 

See, once the bandwidth was there, why would anybody purchase music anymore, when they could rent it in unlimited bulk? The problem was, the model didn’t work. Not really. Not even for the companies who created it. 

A long time ago, my first song publisher told me something truer than anything has ever been. He said that the dirty little secret about the music business was that for every 10 cents that came in, 11 cents had to go out. So, somebody had to get screwed. And who is the easiest to screw? Songwriters. Because they don’t have much recourse or say in any of it.  

Why is that? 

It’s because songwriting is the ONLY profession and trade group in the history of the United States, to be completely controlled by congress. Our copyright laws have not only been set by congress, since 1909, but our RATES have been set as well. And they’ve been set in a completely arbitrary way. 

Also, (and this is the important part) they’ve been based on a PRICE. PER. UNIT model. Once the world transitioned to a bulk rental model, nobody knew how to pay songwriters a fair rate for their work. So, they didn’t. They just made up something that worked for them. NOT all parties concerned. 

When my manager came to me, in 2009, and asked if I wanted to be on these new streaming platforms, my first question was the one EVERY artist should’ve asked: “What’s the pay structure?” 

When he shared with me that you didn’t really get paid, the answer was a no-brainer for me, as I figured it would be for everybody who got asked to join that little experiment: “no, thanks. When they figure out the model, I might be on board.” 

So, I wasn’t on any streaming platform for several years. 

*I joined in 2020, when I thought I was going to die and I just wanted my son to have access to my work. That is really the ONLY reason I ever put anything on a steamer.* 

But, to my amazement, label after label rushed to put their artist’s content on these platforms. Why would they do this? How could they make money from it?

Oh. I get it. They bought controlling interest in the streaming companies, shorted their artist fees and made billions on the back end in stock profits. The very definition of “conflict of interest.” 

Instead of all the artists banning together and creating some sort of united front against this predatory practice, we just did what we always do – created more songs and records and made more people sing and dance. Because we’re all broken and have no self worth. And we’ve been made to feel that we’re just lucky to be on the program our entire lives. 

Daniel Ek, creator of Spotify, has admitted (I’ve sent the videos) to how much he revered Napster as a young man, and how much music he pirated. The stolen music helped him through some tough times as the son of a single mother. He has said publicly that he wanted to create something like that to share with the world. 

So, he convinced everybody to sell their souls to him, in exchange for access to millions of ears. And he has single handedly de-valued music to almost nothing, in the process. 

Streaming pays about 10x LESS that record purchases paid. 

That means for people like me, who spent their lives creating song catalogs that should be worth millions, my lifetime of work is literally worth nothing. That’s not hyperbole. I don’t mean “nothing” as some euphemism for “very little.” I mean…NOTHING. 

Because, the perfect storm of government over regulation and unchecked capitalism converged on the music business, to create this monstrous thing that makes the app worth more than the thing it streams. WAY more. 

In other words, owning the record store is now worth more than being Elvis.

It is estimated that there is at least 20 billion dollars on the sidelines, that used to flow through the music business, that no longer does, because streaming has consolidated consumption so effectively. But it’s still a flawed model. 

What other thing, that has to be made by people, can you get an unlimited amount of for $14 a month? Only entertainment. 

That’s because we’ll do it for free. So, they will let us. 

I find that most people are good-hearted and want musicians and writers to be paid for their work. People will often ask me, “where can I buy this so that you will make money from it?” 

That’s a real sweet question. It indicates a good soul; a fair-minded soul. 

But the answer is, unfortunately, a dark one. The actual answer is…nowhere.  

So, I say don’t worry about it. Bob Dylan once wrote, “when you ain’t got nothing, you ain’t got nothing to lose.” Mr. Zimmerman nailed it. 

Get my music anywhere you want to get it. I don’t see any money from it anymore, anyway. My preference is that you pirate it in some way. Because in an ironic twist, that keeps you from using a streaming company  – all of whom are engaging in some sort of conflict of interest and/or shell games, that essentially screw the artists and songwriters.    

So, go to YouTube and listen for free. Get a bootleg copy. Hell, I’ll send you a Dropbox file of everything I’ve ever done. I couldn’t care less, anymore. None of it’s worth a damn or a dime. Your dollar purchase on iTunes won’t get to me for months – if ever. And we’re all drowning in the wake of the medium of choice. 

And where is that money going? Basically, to Joe Rogan. 

But, hey – that’s another blog for another day. 

R

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