Extended Analysis

The extended analysis led me to understand that just because an article has a title that is relevant to a discussion doesn't mean that it can hold too much weight upon critical inspection, or just inspection deeper than just casual reading. I think the biggest part of realizing that was probably when I noticed that the essay had a severe independent bias, and upon researching the author a little more, he was part of a self-quoted “proud independent movement in the musical scene.” I probably should have researched who the author was while writing the analysis, as it’s pretty darn important to make sure your sources aren’t biased, but when it’s clearly biased like that, the fact that he kept a somewhat neutral discussion point is actually fairly astounding to me. I know I could never write a remotely fair analysis of how record companies do business, because I’ve seen the fine print in some of those deals, and my personal experience doesn’t allow me to be fair to them. I can definitely use the article in my essay still, because the quotes are important stuff, and the narration, while a bias is present, is overall fairly balanced, and that’s the best an author can get in most instances.

The big question about any essay: why does this matter, and who does it impact? It impacts anyone interested in making music, as piracy is generally assumed to the biggest money-loser in the online industry. This matters because anyone interested in being a musician for a career has to worry about their work being illegally copied and downloaded by hundreds of people, which usually results in hundreds of lost sales. For an independent musician, hundreds of lost sales could result in a foreclosure, or worse; bankruptcy. For mainstream musicians, piracy is less of an issue because they make most of their money from touring, selling thousands of tickets, and while I don’t know the exact distribution of funds with those, I know that it’s significant enough that it makes up for how little they make per record.