SPECIAL REPORT
The GMA Fights Back
With Christian teens illegally downloading music apparently at the same rate as their mainstream peers, the Gospel Music Association hopes its anti-piracy campaign will stem the tide.
by Andy Argyrakis | posted 2/28/2005
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Not long ago, a New Yorker cartoon showed a woman, arms crossed and a stern look on her face, peering over her husband's shoulder at the computer. He turns to her pleadingly and says, "I swear I wasn't looking at smut. I was just stealing music."
It's easy to snicker at that cartoon, but the issue of online piracy is no laughing matter. It's been well- reported for years in the secular music industry, which has fought back by taking operations like Napster to court and even filing lawsuits against individuals who've illegally downloaded tunes.
But the problem isn't limited to the mainstream. Christian music is dealing with it too. According to at least one survey, Christians are just as likely to illegally download music as non-believers.
The Gospel Music Association has had enough. The GMA, sort of an umbrella organization that oversees much of Christian music, is fighting back—not with lawsuits and court dates, but with an awareness campaign that essentially asks consumers to examine their own habits and morals.
Adopting the slogan, "Millions of Wrong Don't Make a Right," the GMA is spreading the word in an attempt to curb the trends. They've partnered with the Christian Music Trade Association (CMTA) to develop a website to help accomplish that goal, and they waste no time getting to the point:
"Stealing music is the same as stealing anything else," the site proclaims. "It is illegal and the consequences are real—for you and for the music." Among the consequences noted are that "the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) can sue for as much as $150,000 per song illegally downloaded," many of those sued have settled out of court, for an average of $3,000.
The GMA and CMTA have decided not to pursue lawsuits, a la the RIAA. "They have their approach, and we have ours," says CMTA director Gabriel Aviles. "We're glad they're doing what they're doing, thought I don't know that I agree with their methodology. We're playing to the consumer who has more of a moral backdrop."
The GMA's push comes partly as a result of a 2004 study by The Barna Group, which found that Christian teens illegally reproduced and downloaded music with essentially the same regularity as their mainstream peers.
The Barna study indicated that only 10 percent of born-again Christian teens believe that copying CDs for friends and unauthorized downloading are morally wrong, compared to 6 percent of non-believers). Born-again Christians (77 percent) were just as likely as non-believers (81 percent) to have engaged in some form of music piracy over the previous six months.
(Even our own readers at Christian Music Today are fessing up. In a recent poll, only 20 percent of readers said they believe that "all burning/ripping is illegal," while 34 percent said they regularly burn music for various personal reasons. In another poll, only 12 percent of readers said they'd refuse a burned copy of a CD offered by a friend; 31 percent said they'd keep the copy and not buy the music, and another 8 percent said they'd in turn burn a copy for another friend.)
"Either somebody's not teaching them very well or else this isn't on the radar screen," says GMA president John W. Styll, referring to the disregard of copyright laws surrounding an artist's recordings. "In this digital age, the concept of intellectual property needs to be better known. People don't think about it very much. They don't really think about the implications down the line."
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