Man könnte ja meinen, dass einem Rockstar wie Paul Stanley, der seit 40 Jahren in einer der erfolgreichsten Rockbands der Welt spielt, egal sein dürfte, ob noch jemand seine Alben kauft oder aus dem Internet herunterlädt. Falsch gedacht. In einem Interview mit The Joe Rogan Experience antwortete der Kiss-Gitarrist auf die Frage, wie die Erfolgschancen aussehen würden, wenn sie die Band heutzutage gegründet hätten, mit:
„We’d be fucked, in plain English, because the music industry as it exists today is not even an industry, it’s just shambles. And now artists are in a position to have to take what the public, so to speak, is willing to give them. In other words, with this onset of ‚file sharing’… well, file sharing is just a fancy way of saying ’stealing.‘ You can’t share what you don’t own. The idea that somebody is taking songs or music off the Internet and taking it for free and calling it ‚file sharing‘ is like me saying ‚transportation borrowing,‘ and I steal you car.“
Stanley erläutert seine Ansichten weiter:
„When people create art with the hope of being not only accepted but also being rewarded so they can pay their rent and send their kids to school and things like that, and that doesn’t happen, that’s what stealing does. But the person who steals on the Internet somehow doesn’t feel the same as going into a store and stealing a cassette — which don’t even exist anymore. But if you go into a store, if you go into a Barnes & Noble or some place and steal a book, that’s blatantly, and very clearly, illegal. Downloading something somehow skirts the ethical and moral question of taking something that doesn’t belong to you and not paying the person for it… The truth is what you don’t own you can’t take for free. You can, but it’s wrong. It’s morally wrong, it’s ethically wrong, and it hurts people.“
Im weiteren Verlauf des Interviews gibt Paul Stanley zu, dass File-Sharing vor allem jungen Bands schadet, aber er beruft sich auch auf Metallicas Rechtsstreit mit Napster und vertritt den Standpunkt, dass auch große Bands für ihre Arbeit bezahlt werden sollte:
„Look, for me, it’s a question more about morality in my case. It’s not gonna change my life any, but it sure bothers me that somebody is taking what they don’t own, and it bothers me that somebody who’s trying to succeed now and starting off doesn’t have a chance in hell, more than likely, of ever getting that pot of gold. Well, a lot of artists are wondering where their royalties are now. You can’t put milk back in a bottle — spilled milk — and, unfortunately, things transpired that there’s really no getting around at this point. So was Lars out of line? No. He was just saying, ‚I should be paid.‘ It has nothing to do with whether he’s wealthy or not. Who are you to dictate that he has enough?“
Auf die Frage, ob Fans und Musiker nicht einen Kompromiss finden könnten, antwortet Stanley abschließend:
„Why do I have to meet you in the middle? Why do I have to compromise because of circumstance? You should respect my integrity and you should respect my art instead of me going, ‚All right, well, you got me. So I’ll take 50 cents on the dollar instead of you giving me the dollar?‘ Wrong. It’s wrong. Was it Thom Yorke and his band …. Didn’t they do an album where they offered it on the Internet and said, ‚Just pay what you would like for it‘? Well, they got nothing. You know how much they got? Nothing. Look and see what it averaged per album. It was a total stupid move. And I don’t think they’ll do that again.“ (via Blabbermouth)
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