My wife and I listen to Coast to Coast AM. We’re night owls and have been loyal listeners for years. But on the last show host Ian Punnett had author / New York Times Editorial Board member Eduardo Porter on and they made some really (for lack of a better word) stupid comments about creative products distributed digitally. This is a copy of the letter I sent to the radio show, its parent company, several copyright organizations, the author and several people at his publishing company.

Full disclosure: I believe a content producer can charge anything they want, even give their work away for free. What’s at issue is a person in a seat of power, like Porter, essentially saying that digital content is an intangible thing and holds no value of its own. This is especially offensive when many of the people I know who produce digital content work many long hours with teams of people supporting them. Everyone who produces content should have the right to keep a roof over their head by exploiting the free market. That doesn’t mean I feel all ventures will succeed, but if the public listens to people like Porter then software, books, music, films, comics, and even news, is worthless and no one will ever be harmed if it’s pirated. I already know this isn’t true and no matter your feeling on how the record labels decided to act against piracy (a completely misguided and inept campaign) you have to admit that there are fixed costs to production. No matter the distribution platform, media creators have the right to decide at what price they present their product for sale. In the body of the letter, please note the hypocrisy present with Porter’s statements when balanced against the asking price of his latest book on Kindle.

…… Begin Letter ……

On a recent edition of the Coast to Coast AM radio program (http://www.coasttocoastam.com) author Eduardo Porter and host Ian Punnett expressed the viewpoint that it costs nothing to create a work of music or other copyrighted product beyond the physical production pricing and joked about the pricing of Beatles albums on iTunes. The specific quotes are:

Ian Punnett: “You can go buy the CD copy of a Beatles Album for $9.00 and that’s already overpriced. That’s already ridiculously priced. That, that you’re already talking about really 20 cents worth of plastic, maybe 80 cents worth of petroleum products, whatever is in there, and then the rest of it is all just gravy. There’s no new album art and nothing else that went into the production of that CD that’s $9 in an actual physical copy is $12.99 on iTunes. Then all you’re doing is buying zeros and ones. That’s insane!”

Eduardo Porter: “Because creative products, the actual cost of making a unit is not… is irrelevant. The real, the real money is in the copyright, right? That copyright. Well, why can they charge whatever they want for a song is because they have a monopoly over that song. Once you have a monopoly over anything you can charge whatever you want for it and that’s what copyrights are designed to do… to give the holder of the copyrights a monopoly over that particular, you know, piece of creation. Be it a song, or a movie, or a what-not. However it… how much it costs to make, that’s zero really.”

This is a shamefully uneducated statement for a media production to make, especially one with a very large nation-wide footprint of network affiliates and online listeners. The radio show, which offers a subscription based package online via Premiere Radio Networks’ “Streamlink” service, obviously does not pay its hosts, producers, engineers, sales staff, or other service providers such as electric, telecommunications, hardware manufacturers, or commercial property support staff. As this is the case, why should I continue to pay for a subscription to a show that costs nothing to produce?

To Mr. Eduardo’s publishers, as his book (The Price of Everything) is available through Portfolio Hardcover, a division of Penguin Publishing, at an MSRP of $27.95 for a physical copy and $14.99 in a kindle edition ($2 more than the reported digital copy of the Beatles albums), why should he charge so much for it? By his logic Penguin has spent no money to pay for the editing, sales, distribution services, shipping, artwork, typesetting, or digital conversion. As a matter of fact, we can get even deeper and say that he himself is just one man at a computer… the Beatles were four members, so he should actually be pricing it closer to $3.25 for his Kindle edition. That number is arrived at by taking the price of the Beatle albums $12.99 and dividing by four. That would be the fair market price, since Penguin does not put any money into the product. I’m sure everyone at Penguin would be alright with that pricing.

I am revolted by the statements of the author and the show host and if I was on their team, working to produce a product which would be sold through digital distribution (as both the show host, and the author, are doing) I would be very upset at learning my responsibilities in bringing that product to market are of no consequence.

Beyond this, such a slam to recording artists, record labels, sound engineers, producers, writers, and all other workers in the creative process is unacceptable. Does Premiere Radio Networks also believe that they should not be bound to pay their ASCAP, BMI, or other music licenses? Is this mentally systemic of how Premiere Radio Networks,at all operating levels, feels toward the creative community?

Does Penguin Publishing feel this is an acceptable statement for the author to make? That it costs nothing to bring a digital product to a mass market? If so, why does Penguin choose to price this author’s books in such a way?

To The Coast team, I’m ashamed of you. For all the authors, recording artists, filmmakers, actors, and anyone else you have had as guests… to disrespect the way they earn a living makes me very sad to call myself a listener. You should know better.

I do expect a response. This email has been forwarded to each individual show host, producer, numerous employees at Premiere Radio Networks, the author, his agents, numerous contacts at Penguin, Apple, the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, The Copyright Alliance, and The Music First Coalition. I will be delivering this, and any official responses, in an open letter to any and all Copyright blogs, music industry magazines and blogs, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and other outlets on Wednesday 1/19/2011.

……

I will be circulating that letter with responses soon. I know many of my readers in the creative field have been the direct victims of copyright issues and this is a reckless abuse of national radio. thoughts?

Update: I was issued a response from Will Weisser at Penguin, the substance is as follows:

“Mr. Dreyer – thanks for your note. There’s a chapter in THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING called “The Price of Free” in which Mr. Porter discusses these issues in depth. When you read that chapter, I think you’ll agree that Mr. Porter’s true position is actually very close to your own. And that his out-of-context quote on the radio is not a fair summary.”

My response to Mr. Weisser is below:

“The context is defined by himself and the host. If he wishes to clarify his own remarks, he should make that particular chapter available for “The Price of Free” because I have no interest in giving him a cent at this point.”