Why pay for what you can get for free?

I read a Chuck Klosterman column in Esquire a few months back–or, possibly in his collection IV–in which he mentioned, off-handedly, that downloading MP3s for free is stealing. He didn’t condemn the practice, but he did say something to the effect of “don’t kid yourself–you now have property that you didn’t pay for. You stole it.”

I’ll go ahead and say what Klosterman won’t: It’s stealing, and it’s wrong. Which is why I so appreciate this post by Alan Jacobs over at the Scene entitled “my writing doesn’t want to be free.” There’s something to be said for the musical model of free distribution–as an unknown up and comer, I give away my music for free so you will pay to see me in concert–but this model leaves out a very important factor: what if I don’t want to give away my music for free?

And this is the inherent problem with Napster and its descendants. There are tons of bands out there looking for a break, desperate for any kind of attention they can get, and more than happy to build a fanbase by giving away their music for free. But these are, by and large, not the bands people are illegally downloading. People are downloading the top 40. People are downloading one hit wonders from the 80s. People are downloading entire albums from bands who find this practice pernicious and want it stopped without even considering paying for them. I’ve never really understood how people justified their theft of an artist’s music.

Writers face a different dilemma than musicians. David Simon is a pretentious jackass, but he is on to something when he argues against newspapers and magazines giving away their content for free. True, journalism has always been little more than a delivery method for advertising. But it’s still unclear just how to deliver those advertisements to the customer when the written word is your medium and those words are transmitted for free. It’s even harder to see how freelance writers are supposed to make a living in this endeavor. And once the great writers stop being paid to write, they’ll stop writing. Do we really want to live in a universe where the only people who traffic in letters are bloggers doing so in their spare time?