Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy

Examines how the recording industry uses the “piracy panic narrative” to position itself as a victim of new technologies, while obscuring the industry’s exploitation of musicians and lobbying for policies that prioritize its profits

When people develop technologies to distribute music, record labels act like it will destroy music. This book shows these narratives are about reconfiguring power.

The recording industry regularly paints its consumers as pariahs waiting for new technologies to hurt the very musicians they love. In Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok, Dr. David Arditi examines how the major record labels single-out new technologies as if they will bring an end to recorded music. They use what he calls the “piracy panic narrative”—a narrative in which new technologies threaten the very existence of recorded music. The piracy panic narrative is a rhetorical construct that helps to hide the material reality of the recording industry by positioning major record labels and their recording artists as the victims of widespread crime in the form of piracy. Now, divorced from piracy, the recording industry continues to use the panic narrative to dissuade fans from specific practices and to lobby the government for particular policies. Each time, they use the narrative to change public sentiment, the law, and policy to strengthen their profits. At every moment what gets ignored is labels are the primary exploiter of musicians.