July 15, 2003

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The contemporary Christian music industry is taking a different approach to try to curb illegal music downloading. Rather than preparing to sue thousands of its fans, the industry is "responding to the problem by appealing to their customers’ faith and moral values," reports Nashville City Paper:

The Christian Music Trade Association has formed an anti-piracy task force that is meeting weekly to develop ways to spread the word to Church groups and CD buyers that downloading is not only illegal, it violates one of the key tenets of the Christian faith: Thou shalt not steal.

The Nashville-based trade group and affiliated Gospel Music Association reported earlier this month that sales of Christian CD units are down 10 percent the first half of this year over the same time last year, compared to an 8 percent decline in the overall music industry.

"Clearly one of the culprits is the fact that so many people are downloading music without paying for it and burning CDs illegally. It is causing economic harm to everybody in the food chain involved in music, from the songwriters to retailers," said John Styll, president of both groups. "We felt like in the Christian community, there is, beyond a legal obligation, also an ethical and moral obligation. We think in the Christian community, we can appeal to that side."

UPDATE: Michael Williams says the Christian bands he's acquainted with 'prefers the additional exposure that pirating brings to whatever marginal revenue is lost in sales." That's probably accurate. Independent and not-yet-huge artists and bands often have a more accepting view of music file-sharing, figuring it expands their audience even though it brings them no direct revenue on CD sales, and a larger audience translates to a bigger market for concert tix and future CDs.