Down by law
The RIAA's policies toward DJ mixes are stupid, even by its own narrow standards.

By Vivian Host

THE FIRST TIME I really thought about the Recording Industry Association of America was last September, when the story broke that the organization was suing a 12-year-old girl for downloading music on Kazaa. Things hit home by December, when I was in the process of trying to duplicate my latest DJ mix CD. Until then, putting out a mix CD was as easy as sending the master and the artwork to the plant. What I discovered was that the RIAA had pressured every CD-manufacturing house from Ottawa, Canada, to Canton, Ohio, into requiring lengthy documents proving that each track a DJ wants to use is licensed – which meant I needed a lot of paperwork (and cash) to complete my 23-track mix that says "Promotional Use Only" on it in big letters.

Without major-label backing or a cushy corporate job, paying between $500 and $1,500 a track – approximately $23,000 for my mix – was completely out of the question. Like so many DJs before me, my only alternative was to retreat to my CD burner. Have you ever tried to burn 200 CDs on a home burner? It takes a long time. In one hour I managed to dupe eight CDs – which meant I had a lot of time to fume about the consequences that the RIAA's actions might have on dance music culture.

Mix tapes (more accurately mix CDs these days) are the promotional backbone for a DJ – whether they play electronic music or hip-hop. An up-and-coming DJ needs balls and a hot mix to get a foot in the door with promoters. Once in, your reputation spreads through your mixes, which are passed out to fans and subsequently bought and traded.

Mixes have always been a major tool for breaking underground artists and building hype for them, so much so that record-label reps regularly pass out unreleased and exclusive tracks to DJs for use in clubs and on CDs. "Without DJs, a lot of these artists aren't getting any shine and any publicity," local hip-hop DJ Ross Hogg says. "I feel like we're doing the artist a favor. We can play any song on a mix CD, and oftentimes it might not be the one that's getting the most play on the radio. We can help boost album cuts and boost artists that might not get played." The most famous example of how this works might be the success of 50 Cent, who was signed to Shady Records off the strength of street buzz caused by his repeated appearances on underground mixes by New York City hip-hop DJs like Whoo Kid and Kay Slay.

Of course, money is behind the RIAA crackdown. Mixes are part of the DJ's hustle. Often sold on street corners, at gigs, and in independent record stores, they're a way for DJs to make a little extra on the side ... and don't think there're any royalties being paid. But is it worth it to collect royalties off someone who sells 500 CDs at $10 a pop? And wouldn't a label probably pay a street rep twice as much to do the kind of grassroots, targeted street promotion an illegal mix CD offers an up-and-coming artist? Plus, Hogg says, it's not like anyone's making a killing off mix CDs. "Why do they have a problem with us selling mix CDs, but they don't have a problem with us playing in a club? We charge a cover, we get paid, people come to hear us play other people's tracks – I don't see how it's any different."

In the electronic music scene underground mix CDs have been crucial to breaking largely European music to the U.S. market. Genres like techno, drum 'n' bass, and nu-skool breaks – where the music is mostly made overseas and only ever released on 12-inches – might never have achieved the degree of popularity they have in the States now if it weren't for ravers passing around illegal mix CDs. Dance music culture isn't built on albums; it's built on 12-inch singles, which are still difficult to find and prohibitively expensive for the average music consumer, who more often than not doesn't even own a record player. Until the majority of independent labels are able to make their catalogs available to be downloaded, mix CDs will be the only way dance music fans can hear their favorite obscure tracks.

And there's a tacit acceptance of the illegal mix-CD practice by artists, says Tomas Palermo, editor of electronic music magazine XLR8R and a DJ in his own right. "I think of mix tapes as the most sincere form of musical democracy," he says. "Plus, any artist or label who puts an a capella on a 12-inch knows what they're doing and why. This is a tradition in hip-hop and house – yes, even disco – that's as old as the 12-inch itself."

Unlike the U.K., the United States has few radio stations playing underground dance music. And with the passing of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 – which required Webcasters to pay royalties, currently and retroactively, on all recordings they broadcast – Internet radio has lost its foothold as well. Practically the only place you can go to hear underground music now is a club or your friend's bedroom. That's fine if you live in San Francisco, where every other person's a DJ and you can hear cutting-edge music every night of the week, but what if you live in a small town in Iowa or Alaska?

Thanks to the Internet and affordable technology, DJs are coming up with creative new ways to get around the law. Those with enough bandwidth are starting to upload mixes to their own Web sites, and many club nights have live streams. Street entrepreneurs are stringing CD burners together to produce bulk lots of underground mixes, and professional-quality burners and desktop printers are finally making it possible to make professional-looking CDs at home.

The biggest thing the RIAA's actions are changing, Palermo says, is technology. "This will force people to come up with new ways of doing what they want to do already, which is get the music they want as quickly and cheaply as possible. What Prohibition did for alcohol, the RIAA is doing for music. Good luck to them. The DJ will always have relevance because they are entertainers and interactive components of the music community."