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" Online Music Sharing May Benefit Artists " by Janis Ian. Internet Piracy. James D. Torr, Ed. At Issue Series. Greenhaven Press, 2005. Janis Ian, "The Internet Debacle—an Alternative View," www.janisian.com. Copyright © by Rude Girl Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.

1) The Internet is similarly allowing more people to hear new and independent artists.

2) the musicindustryhad exactlythe same response to the advent of reel-to-reel home tape recorders, cassettes, DATs, minidiscs, VHS, BETA, musicvideos ("Why buy the record when you can tape it?"), MTV, and a host of other technological advances designed to make the consumer's life easier and better.

3) One other major point: in the hysteria of the moment, everyone is forgetting the main way an artist becomes successful—exposure.

4) It's dreadful to think that consumers are being asked to take responsibility for the industry's problems, which have been around far longer than the Internet.

5) it's difficult to convince an educated audience that artists and record labels are about to go down the drain because they, the consumer, are downloading music. Particularly when they're paying $50-$125 apiece for concert tickets, and $15.99 for a new CD they know costs less than a couple of dollars to manufacture and distribute.

6) They're going to make sure no one can copy CDs, even for themselves, or download them for free. Brilliant, except that it flouts previous court decisions about blank cassettes, blank videotapes, etc.

7) Here's a fool-proof way to deliver music to millions who might otherwise never purchase a CD in a store.

8) Free exposure is practically a thing of the past for entertainers. Getting your record played at radio costs more money than most of us dream of ever earning.

9) Every act that can't get signed to a major, for whatever reason, can reach literally millions of new listeners, enticing them to buy the CD and come to the concerts.

10) Now, RIAA and NARAS, as well as most of the entrenched music industry, are arguing that free downloads hurt sales. (More than hurt—they're saying it's destroying the industry.)

11) Realistically, why do most people download music? To hear new music, or records that have been deleted and are no longer available for purchase. Not to avoid paying $5 at the local used CD store, or taping it off the radio, but to hear music they can't find anywhere else. Face it—most people can't afford to spend $15.99 to experiment.