Here is the first article I wrote. This was for the Jewish Entertainment Magazine. You can download the PDF here. This one was not as lighthearted and fun, but I tried to take a serious issue and be as soft as possible.

Hey Buddy, Can You Burn Me a Copy?

A frank discussion on the illegal copying of Jewish music CD’s.

By: Sruly Meyer

My name is Sruly Meyer and I work for Sameach Music. I am not a singer or a musician. I don’t book concerts and I am not a manager for any artists. I am a graphic designer who works for a company that produces, distributes and promotes Jewish music. As of 2003 I had no contacts to anyone inside the Jewish Music industry. Well, none aside from my good pal Zalman Goldstein who I knew from Florida. None of my relatives worked in the industry, none of my friends worked for anyone in the industry. The only other possible connection I had was that I went to high school with two of Avraham Fried’s nephews for one year in New Jersey.

In 2003 I met Izzy Taubenfeld of Sameach Music through another company that I had just started working at after I got married. We had some conversations which eventually led to my coming to work for Sameach. At the time they were moving from Izzy’s basement and into a beautiful new warehouse in Queens.

I always enjoyed Jewish music and I was excited to get the opportunity to work in this industry. Before I met Izzy I didn’t know the names of the individual producers or distributors or arrangers. I just knew the name of the singers that I liked. I loved Mordechai Ben David, Avraham Fried, Dedi, The Piamenta’s and Shlomo Simcha. I was also a big fan of Shlock Rock, Journeys and Destiny.

At the time that I first started working for Sameach the first Blue Fringe had just been released. I mention the Blue Fringe CD because it’s probably a CD I wouldn’t have bought on my own. I am not proud to admit it, but before I worked for Sameach there is a chance I would have asked someone who had the CD to burn me a copy. My thought process went something like this:

“I don’t know if they are any good and so I probably wouldn’t have bought it to begin with. I’ll just burn a copy, if I like it – I’ll go to the store and buy a real copy.” I know a lot of people in the past have adopted this train of thought. “Why should I waste so much money on a CD I won’t like? Plus how big of a deal is this really, who is really losing money anyway?” Maybe I thought it was a victimless crime?

It’s not as though I was a serial copier. I didn’t burn a copy of every CD that came out. In fact I actually spent a nice amount of my money on CD’s over the years. I don’t think I first copied a CD until I was in Yeshiva. A lot of people believe that copying in the Yeshiva system is rampant. If things are nearly as bad today as they were ten years ago then rampant may just be the understatement of the year. I wasn’t someone who copied that often, just once in a while. In fact there were many times when I even repurchased CD’s that I owned but lost over time. When I got my first Sony Discman I bought the CD versions of many of the cassettes I owned.

So why am I writing this article? It’s simple. Copying is getting worse and while there are no official numbers, it’s without a doubt affecting sales. I have been asked a few times already to write such an article and I wasn’t sure that people were ready for this discussion until now. Over the last 6 months I believe there has been a healthy rise in discussion regarding copying. I think it’s an important discussion that everyone should be having.

I know that many people use the excuse that halacha isn’t clear on intellectual property law. I also know that there are rabonim who outright say that if you copy a CD you are stealing. But I don’t want to turn this article into a kuntrus on the halacha’s of intellectual property laws. Trust me, I am extremely under-qualified to lead such a discussion.

So again, what is the reason for my writing this article? Like I mentioned earlier in this article, as of a few years ago I was just like you. I was just some guy who enjoyed Jewish music and when something new came out I asked my friends what they thought. I always brought home a copy of the most recent Jewish magazine to see what was being written about the new CD’s.

Now, three years since I started to work in this industry I see what goes on behind the scenes. I have met many of the artists and composers and the people at every level of production who work so hard just to make a living. I can tell you that when you copy it really does hurt the income of many people. If I had known what I know now, I promise you I never would have copied a CD.

According to United States copyright law, when you buy a CD, it is illegal to duplicate it for anybody else. Yes we believe you own it, and we also believe that you can make as many copies for yourself as you want. For yourself being the key word. You can make a copy for your car and another for your cubicle at work. You can put it on your iPod and if someone is in your home you are allowed to play it for them. But you can’t burn them a copy. It’s yours, we are selling it to you, but we trust that you will do the right thing.

There are no small crimes. When a person copies a CD they may think that it’s just them, it’s one time, no one has to know, how can one CD make an impact anyway? The problem is that in most cases it isn’t just one person, it isn’t just one time, and someone already does know. I think that this is an issue that most people, if they look deep inside their hearts know is wrong. In the very pit of your stomach they know, they have to, they just know that it isn’t right.

One of the reasons people think it’s no big deal is because of the ease with which one can make a copy. How could something so easy be wrong? It’s not as though you are planning a midnight heist. It’s a simple process. Open your computer’s media player, add the files, insert a CD and press copy.

There are a lot of things to take into account that people who are not behind the scenes don’t know. People are unaware of the actual sales numbers that are in many cases significantly lower than people think. People are under the impression that the artists receive the bulk of the sales money and that they live very comfortably. That, I’m very sorry to report is almost never the case. There are maybe a handful of singers that are making money off of their CD’s. A lot of artists release CD’s hoping they break even and hoping that people will appreciate their voice, style, their music and then hire them to sing at weddings and concerts.

I’ve met these singers. I’ve met the composers. I’ve met people trying to break into the business. I’ve met the guitar players and the keyboard players. I’ve met the people who work in the Judaica stores. I know these people now. I know how many people in this industry are relying on the CD’s to sell in order to make a parnassah. I rely on this industry to pay my mortgage, my electric bill, my phone bill. Very soon I’ll need it to pay the tuition for my son and daughter to go to school.

We are just like you, the shoe salesmen, the pizza store owners, the mortgage brokers and the accountants. We have a product and we are trying to make a living. It’s just not as easy for someone to steal a shoe or hide a pizza under their coat as it is to burn a CD.

Of course there is still the issue of not wanting to spend money on something that you might not like. We wouldn’t want you to spend money on something that you won’t like. If you buy something that you don’t like then the next time you see something that requires you to take a risk you might think twice. We don’t want that because if you don’t buy new CD’s we don’t make money. If we don’t make money we can’t afford to produce more CD’s and if we don’t produce more CD’s this entire discussion will become moot.

That’s why we have been trying over recent years to do as much as possible to enable you to listen and try out the CD’s before you buy them. Don’t rely on anything else other than your own ears and your own opinion. You know what you will like. There are listening stations in almost every major Judaica store in the country. Most of the stores have listening stations that allow you to listen to every track from the entire CD. You can go online, there are many websites (including our own) that allow you to listen to previews of every track on the CD from the comfort of your own home. There are many online radio stations that play our music in their entirety. Some even allow you to request certain songs. Listen, try, and see if you like it.

In the last year Sameach has launched a Podcast. The Podcast is a 45 minute bi-weekly downloadable show that plays new songs from all of the newest CD’s. In most cases we play the entire song and it’s available for free to anyone by going online to our website. That’s right, we want you to try out the music that we are willing to give you 45 minutes of free Jewish music.

There are plenty of places both in store, online and now on your iPod that enable you to listen and try before you buy. I really hope people will start looking deep within themselves and try to do the right thing. If anyone wants to continue this discussion or has any comments or points they’d like to respond to, please e-mail me at SameachMusic@aol.com. I try my absolute best to answer every e-mail that comes in and I will try to speak with you as openly and frank as I hope I have here today.