Acoustic Band ‘Utterly Depends’ on Piracy
Written by enigmax on August 26, 2008Steve Knightley is one half of ‘Show of Hands’, an award-winning acoustic and folk duo from the UK. Steve says he is thankful to the people that pirate the band’s music and go out of their way to promote the band. In fact, he says the band utterly depends on them.
The music industry’s position is clear, every download is a lost sale and there is no such animal as ‘piracy is promotion’. However, some people feel that there are benefits associated with piracy, as free musical samples can go out today with very little fuss, for the no-risk perusal of potential future audiences.
My otherwise law-abiding parents will quietly take the time to have a listen to something on a CDR that might interest them, but overwhelmingly they buy media, go to live musical performances, the opera, and generally pay their way. They are not on their own. As unbelievable as this may sound to the music industry, everyone is not a habitual pirate and people do use piracy for good, something that band ‘Show of Hands’ has noticed.
Born in 1954, Steve Knightley is a musician singer-songwriter and one half of BBC award-winning acoustic roots duo, ‘Show of Hands‘. Just like every other band, from the smallest to the biggest, they aren’t immune to piracy.
“After any show we can always be found chatting to our audience, signing stuff and generally hanging out by the CD table. I always make a point of asking people how they first heard about us,” says Steve. “The three most common answers are, they’ve been ‘dragged’ along by friends, they heard us on the radio - or someone gave them a copy of one of our CDs. This last one is usually accompanied by a look of collective guilt and embarrassment.”
At this point Steve would call the police - if the IFPI had their way. But no, Steve sees these people in a very different light and is actually grateful that pirates didn’t chose someone else’s music to ’steal’:
“Let’s consider this more closely - a person who values our music has kindly made a copy of a CD and gone out of their way to spread the word about us. That recipient has then bought both a ticket to see us and a CD on the night.” So it’s obvious that being a pirate doesn’t exclude people from being a fan, they just aren’t paying at the point of piracy - but they will, when the circumstances are right.
Steve also believes that ’sharing’ really is ‘caring’, which is refreshing in these ’sue-em-all’ days: “You may call this process ‘piracy’ if you wish - for me it is an act of generosity and it both increases our audience size and record sales. And as I always say on the night - if you’re going to do it anyway you may as well feel good about it!”
Steve also says the band rarely objects if someone wants to film their performances as it’s yet another way of using technology to reach out to their audience.
“I believe the official term is ‘viral marketing’,” says Steve, “and we depend utterly upon it.”
“Don’t fight it - embrace it.”
Previously: 10 Most Pirated TV-Shows on BitTorrent (wk34)
Next: RIAA’s Anti-Piracy Trade Agreement Wishlist
36 Responses
Good on the guy, he is embracing the technology but it won’t be long untill everyone has and it is the norm…
MeH…
I remember someone once told me about a concert. I had heard of the band, but hadn’t heard their music. I then went to the computer, downloaded some of their music, liked it, went to the concert, and then bought one of their CDs.
Indiana Gregg, are you listening????
Wow that pretty cool, i think il go download some of there music now!
I’ll Definitely Listen to his Music, if i liked it, i will buy his Album :-)
God Bless You !
Same here seems like smart people in this DUMB world.
Never heard of them, will certainly check them out now!
Cheers!
show of hands are brilliant! i saw them in tewkesbury the other month and steve suggested everyone copy their mates CD’s if they couldn’t buy their own. Positive attitude to have i think
I listened to these guy’s tunes and I gotta say, not too bad at all. Good background music while working at your desk.
sounds really good, might have to look this band up… I’m such a pirate whore, lol, ah well…
Yeh even better if CDs were unique… like collectable special editions etc. as generally was is the point of a generic CD when all you want to do is rip it to a digital format? isn’t that why people still buy vinyl, because ultimately they want the collection to mean something?
The music industry needs to learns.
And they have a cool, Rush-like name. Bands that hate “piracy” have lame names. Ought to tell you something!
After reading this article, I went to check them out on myspace. Awesome stuff. Gonna have to check out their albums…. :)
Awesome, it’s nice to see a musician who’s not an idiot.
I love reading these sort of articles. Hopefully they keep coming, and influence even more artists.
Keep reporting on this stuff guys.
In Sweden, making a copy of a CD and handing it to a close friend, is not piracy or forbidden.
What the music industry mostly refers to, when talking about piracy is downloads of MP3s etc.
However, I think the same logic, if not laws of Sweden, applies to the phenomenon of file sharing as with giving friends copied CDs but on a different scale.
With the internet, you don’t need to be close friends in order to share music you like. You can give it to anyone who shows interest. This is bound to have at least some of the benefits of the CD promoting of an artist to a friend.
On a side note, it would be interesting to hear what a Swedish lawyer would say about the hypothetical case of someone sharing an album as MP3 with a friend, using P2P technology. It’s allowed when done among close friends, but what if I don’t have any closer friends than those downloading off of my bittorrents? I.e., where does Swedish law draw the line for “close friends” if I don’t have any friends at all, but am very active on a bt tracker ;-) where I consider all peers “friends”.
Just checked them out on youtube and they are actually quite good. Knightley has quite an unique way of singing.
Made of win. Never heard of this band, but I’m off to have a listen. If they’re at all decent I’ll be off to buy their CD. So want to support this sort of attitude.
Who else thinks that they just won tons more “Viral marketing” automatically?
I almost never pay for music BUT if i like the band then
I go to ALL their local concerts when they tour
I buy their merchandise (shirts.. etc)
I personally feel that its a better way to support a band because from CD sales bands get a small portion of the proceeds but they get a much bigger cut from concert tickets and shirts.
hear, hear! Finally a musician who gets it. Or maybe most musicians *do* get it. It’s just the occasional nutter like Metalica that doesn’t. I am a musician too, and I utterly depend on people sharing my music. So yeah, if you like instrumental electronica, check out my stuff ;) http://popamericana.com/76 you can get a torrent at the dreaded Pirate Bay: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4361247/5_albums_by_76
So, I never post on this kind of stuff….
However, I feel compelled to support this band for taking the stance they did. I just looked them up on youtube (prolly pirated) and now i’m interested. Next step, purchase CD.
Are you paying attention RIAA? Perhaps you should…..
We are not pirates, rather smart consumers. The majority of us will “try before we buy”. If we like, the next step is to purchase (regardless of DRM). Please take note.
A light of intelligence in a sea of stupidity.
pirating music is not theft
pirating music is not theft
A) i have a bat you take it thats theft as i no longer have a bat
B) however you look at bat goto a tree and make one identical to mine , i still have the original bat and thus no theft has occured.
DO ARTISTS GET IT YET ,
NO
oh and if the riaa inflates the cost of an infringement then should not the pirate be able to inflate the cost of , buying a burner, buying the cdrs. dvdrs and also his time spent buring.
That would be interesting to see that
subtracted and what youd be left with is what ?
I found this band via “the p word” - I really recommend that everyone checks out “Roots” - or in fact, the whole album Witness!
I liked the music and I have now ordered the album. Me’ thinks that they’re going to get a heck of a profit through this.
Good on him.
Smart man.
For all this, it is a shame that on The Pirate Bay, you can only find 1 seeder (searching names only)
Selling MP3 files for a buck a song is the real crime! Giving the artist 2 cents of it? That’s slavery. Artists who don’t support file sharing these days fall into one or more of these categories:
1. They have something to hide (ie lousy music that won’t sell a live show)
2. They are brainwashed.
3. They have delusions of granduer.
4. They are older than rocks and can’t open their minds anymore.
5. They are just smart enough to make it to work without getting hit by a bus.
Had I not downloaded some music many years ago. I would not have discovered some great bands that I had never heard of in my country.
Had I not downloaded those songs, that band would have never been promoted here, and they would have never toured, like they did 2 years ago and include my country in the itinerary.
Had it not been for “Piracy”, that band would not only have not had a sale from me, because they are good and good enough for me and the other fans in my country that had not heard of them before hand to purchase their CD’s. But they would also not have had the opportunity to travel here to promote themselves and satisfy their fanbase.
In the end, one person “pirated” their music, then a whole group of people followed. Purchasing their CD’s from the bands online store on their site. Had I not downloaded their music, maybe this might not happened at all.
Steve
I absolutely loved this article, thanks a ton for the write-up.
I gotta say, I really like these TF stories on artists who “get it”.
Makes for excellent counter-propaganda to the music industry and I’ve already bought half a dozen albums after hearing about share-friendly bands on TF.
Also, they’re a pleasant break from the usual doom and gloom.
checking out their music on myspace, might grab their album off BT some time, not my usual style of music, but catching :)
Freeloaders are bad but are in reality a small majority of users of eclectic music because those who come to truly appreciate it would lay down the money for it. Basically…piracy becomes a type of free advertising the artist doesn’t have to pay for air time.
Really, the only people hurt by piracy are the record labels who ripped off their artists and customers for years on end…not only money..but good music that was left off the air so that they could force feed the public their garbage.
Hmm.. time to download their album and decide. If its good, time for VIRAL MARKETING!! And buy their albums.
Bottomline: No one wants to spend money on a product that the user will not be happy.
Once that user is satisfied, he will spend money. No one was born evil.
(Maybe RIAA was born evil)
I’m a long time SoH fan… they are one of the most well-respected folk/rock/roots bands in the UK… if they’re performing at a festival the other stages will empty when they’re on.
We *know* that what Steve says is right… but look at it from his point of view. They tour continuously, most of the people seeing them have seen them before. You can only sell someone one copy of your latest album but they’ll come to see you play as many times as they can. So I suspect that, even if piracy didn’t exist, he’s making most of his money from performing rather than CDs. His mindset is that the CD is publicity material for the live show.
My first thought would be that he’s adopted this approach because the live fees go straight into his pocket - no record company taking half of it. But actually, they are their own record company - so I guess he’s happy to lose some money from that revenue stream if it boosts the more profitable touring revenue.
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