Shocking: Pirates Like Britney Spears Too
Written by Ernesto on May 14, 2009A study conducted by PRS, the British music royalty collection agency, looked into the downloading habits of the average user of file-sharing networks. They found that the most downloaded tracks mimic the music charts. That is, people tend to download music that’s already popular.
The outcome of the study is not really that much of a surprise, since nearly half of all Internet users download copyrighted music without permission, so we have to agree with the overall conclusion. However, we do have problems with the authors’ following argument that unsigned and new bands don’t really profit from sharing their music online.
By sheer volume the number of downloads these lesser known bands accumulate might only be a fraction of those generated by the Britney Spears and Duffys of this world, but 10,000 downloads is pretty significant for developing artists. Artists need to be heard in order to build a steady fanbase.
Revenue wise, most artists trying to earn a living making music only have a moderate income, and every fan counts. Generally, they don’t make much from album sales – contracts where the band/artist gets less than 10% of the revenue are quite common. Merchandising and playing gigs are the largest source of income, income that is generated by fans.
If the average artist can pick up a few hundred extra fans by giving away his music for free, this can make a huge difference. This group might not be that interesting for the record labels and the royalty collectors, who tend to feed off the top 1% of artists who are generally well marketed by million dollar budgets from the music industry.
Contrary to the conclusions of the PRS study, a special brand of ‘pirates’ are particularly interested in new and unsigned bands. On the music tracker What.cd, which hosts almost 100,000 users, the most downloaded album ever is a compilation of unsigned artists. Second is an album from The Flashbulb, with 10 times as many downloads as Britney Spears’ Greatest Hits collection.
Similarly, on the music sharing website Jamendo thousands of artists are giving away their music for free. Rob Costlow, one of the early adopters of the site told TorrentFreak that thanks to this free music model, he is able to make a living off his passion. His most popular album on Jamendo was downloaded over 80,000 times while nearly half a million listened to it on the website.
So, even though the vast majority of the the users of file-sharing services download music from the top of the charts, there is undoubtedly a huge potential for new artists to market themselves through file-sharing. Perhaps less interesting for the major labels who make most money off cleverly marketed top acts, but extremely valuable for the average artist trying to make a living off music.
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61 Responses
I agree, any artist that wants exposure should make their music downloadable online for free!
so true
when i read about this study on the bbc rss feed the other day it mentioned the fact that what people listen to is influenced by what there friends listen too. i though this was interesting specifically because they glossed it over and seemed to think it would encourage further downloading of top popular artist, while i would think that it would favor little known artist much more than those heavily promoted by in mainstream media.
sorting by seeder in tbdev is so easy too tho, meebe thats why
Britney? Talk about a talentless twat. I wouldn’t even bother downloading her crap, never mind giving her $0.045 per iTunes download.
My guess is that the Kopimists are listening to new and unknown artists, while the people who just pirate because they want free stuff and don’t actually put that much thought into the matter are the ones who only download shitty mainstream trash.
“Rob Costlow, one of the early adopters of the site told TorrentFreak that thanks to this free music model, he is able to make a living off his passion. His most popular album on Jamendo was downloaded over 80,000 times while nearly half a million listened to it on the website.”
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it would be interesting to know know exactly what kind of “living” he’s making with that many freeloaders. what does half a million downloads equate to monetarily? i would guess the answer is not nearly the success he’s making it out to be, but i’d love to be proved wrong…
@7
Are you dull? He would be making pennies off of that many sales had he put out a record. The point is that people listen to and enjoy his music, and he gains fans that way… fans that PAY FOR t-shirts, stickers and more importantly, concert tickets.
Found Jamendo out a little while ago, pretty cool what they’re doing.
http://torrentino.info
“Rob Costlow, one of the early adopters of the site told TorrentFreak that thanks to this free music model, he is able to make a living off his passion. His most popular album on Jamendo was downloaded over 80,000 times while nearly half a million listened to it on the website.”
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it would be interesting to know know exactly what kind of “living” he’s making with that many freeloaders. what does half a million downloads equate to monetarily? i would guess the answer is not nearly the success he’s making it out to be, but i’d love to be proved wrong…
You stupid fuckin turd…
“Rob Costlow, one of the early adopters of the site told TorrentFreak that thanks to this free music model, he is able to make a living off his passion. His most popular album on Jamendo was downloaded over 80,000 times while nearly half a million listened to it on the website.”
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it would be interesting to know know exactly what kind of “living” he’s making with that many freeloaders. what does half a million downloads equate to monetarily? i would guess the answer is not nearly the success he’s making it out to be, but i’d love to be proved wrong.
Mmmm…silly turd person
Okey, but I still believe most torrent users have better taste and only downloads Britney to make fun of her.
The world is changing. Gone are the days where music artists sit in a studio for a few days, get the record companies to promote their music with radio stations, get air play and then fans buy their records all the while the artist just sits back and watches the money pour in to their bank accounts.
The internet has changed everything. The music is free for the downloading, and now through word of mouth musicians that we would probably never have heard of before achieve fame, and some of them even achieve fortune assuming that they are truly gifted in their talents. All of this thanks to the internet.
For all the Susan Boyles and Paul Potts of the world the internet has been their saving grace. Even artists like Madonna I’m sure can understand that she can owe a large amount of thanks to the free sharing of her music (piracy). I would not be surprised if during her last tour that earned her hundreds of millions of dollars, I’m sure a large percentage of those who bought her tickets have probably never paid for her music before. She had to sweat across stages all around the world working her tired ass and in the end she earned hundreds of millions of dollars most of which she gets to keep. Now that’s brains.
Today, artists still believe in the “oh i’ll just sit in a studio for a few days and wait until the money starts flowing endlessly in to my bank account. I won’t work hard to earn my money but instead I’ll just do lines of coke and have sex with my groupies all day.”
Those days are coming to an end, and the record executives and lawyers know and see that this is coming. This is why they are paying off politicians and judges to ensure that they are in control and become even more richer.
The internet has changed things. Artists can follow Madonnas example. Use the internet to get your stuff out there costing you literally nothing to advertise and host your material. Gather enough fans and momentum and go on a world tour and keep the money for yourself. Fuck the music industry executives. They’ve been bleeding the profits off of you long enough and using you.
Yes, I’m asking the lazy artists to actually earn their money. Why not? The rest of us have to. I’m a back breaking sweaty blue collar worker and I work hard for my money. I’m not a lazy greedy music executive that rakes in millions of dollars a year for doing little or no work while paying my artists as little as I can possibly can while muzzling them through a legal contract.
Times are changing. Evolve or die, and we all must get rid of the fascist RIAA/MPAA. We MUST kill The Beast!
There truly is no god..
Britney’s music is such crap that even pirates want a refund after downloading it.
Fuck, I had no idea popular = popular.
Will someone please ban BuggerMeButtocks?
When I read the sentence in the introductory paragraph about there being no potential for filesharing, I just had to raise an eyebrow. I don’t know what sort of organization the PRS is, but I bet you it’s on the side of the media industry.
by >_>
Will someone please ban BuggerMeButtocks?
Why do you want to ban me?
I have as much right as you to say if someone is talking Turds or not.
Ban >_> please…He is talking turds.
Thankyou.
Cool article, right on the money!
Britney?? Isn’t she that two-dollar crack whore hanging down on the corner??
Oh, she’s the one on the tube…prff, big difference!!
By the way, check this out, latest news from Peter Sunde (TPB):
http://blog.brokep.com/2009/05/14/bad-news-mr-judge/
Serious stuff!
PRS is a non-profit organisation. the only people it is on the side of are songwriters. the vast majority of whom earn very little. i find it interesting that, though almost all the commenters on this article have chosen to simply dismiss the comments of the anonymous poster (no. 6 above) but no-one has taken up his/her challenge of actually providing any evidence to the contrary. neither, incidentally, does the article itself provide much more than a few odd anecdotes to contradict some fairly systematic research by a highly qualified economist (i.e. not an evangelist either for or against the technology/business model in question). if you read will page’s research, you will see that he really does not have any sort of axe to grind, and is doing his best to present a balanced argument in the face of a wealth of empirical evidence against, what is essentially an act of faith on the part of this blog and its various supporters, the idea that file-sharing is actually beneficial for the majority of jobbing musicians and songwriters. please bear in mind, prs is never, and will never, make any profit for itself – as for the pirate bay, well, advertising, as google have discovered, can be very profitable for a “free” service…
Britney spears blows, and this pirate doesn’t like her one bit!!
Personally, I’ve discovered a handful of fantastic artists that I really love, almost all of which are from other countries.
I would love to make sure these artists don’t fade away sending them a little money out of my severely limited funds. I will be looking into ways to do that when there are no donation options on their websites. My idea is to get a traveler’s check made out to them.
Being an American, now why would the American Music Publisher’s have a problem with that? Yes, exactly, because they want me listening to albums that they sell.
So if you are a musician or music group, get a website, and put a donation option on it!
The thing that i think makes the most sense is seeing if you like the artist by torrenting the album. if you like it, buy the album. if you don’t, delete it.
so putting your music out for free is a good way to get some exposure; but i think more artists should pull a radiohead and put their music up for donations, give as much or as little as you want.
Yeah…Cut out the middleman and make the artist sing for his supper.
Like the old days……lol..
/agree about Britney though her earlier work is still great, imo.
Britney today is talentless. Back before she went crazy she was a good entertainer as she looked good and could pull off entertaining choreography. Today though, today she looks like shit and can’t even dance worth a damn. Her last album sucks and the videos are horrible as well. Her current tour is a joke with no live band or remixes or any real dancing on her part.
All in all, Britney up to 2004 was great, even Blackout has some good points but she lost it. The writers who write her songs and whoever works the synthesizer are incredibly untalented as her music nosedived as had her and her performances.
Honestly, I’m glad. Ever since Britney made her ignorant comment about Obama and black people finally being equal and support for same-sex marriage I haven’t cared for her as a person, now I don’t care for her career either.
ORLY?
very good artical ,, bittorrent gives a nobody an opertunity to get out there, and be heard
p2p could actually replace the distribution system now in place and all the free loaders (mpaa/riaa/sgae/ifpi etc) would have to get real jobs
The article doesn’t differentiate between whether it studied Limewire (or any other old school P2P method), Bittorrent or both. I’d say that Britney et al are far more likely to be traded on the former, whereas torrent sites tend to be albums, and a much higher ratio of smaller bands.
Dont get me wrong – I pirate everything myself – but it always makes me laugh every time I see other pirates trying to justify their acts.
“But it helps small artists…”
Yeah and so? Pirating is still wrong – (in theory) we should pay for the goods we get.
Mr. Car Robber: “Yeah but everytime I steal a car, mr. Police man gets overtime and he is now able to afford buying a new TV – I am doing a good deed!.”
Mr. Bank Robber: “Yeah but I always use 10% of the heist on the local burger joint so I help the local economy – I am doing a good deed!.”
I simply dont get it.
Why do we need to argue about this?
Pirating is wrong.
Does helping / promoting / downloading from unknown artists make it 5% less worse?
Peter_Pan pulling a troll??
@17 – r.barry:
I believe you are right about PRS being a non-profit and fairly balanced organisation. Probably pretty accurate claims stated in their report as well, but being a professional musician, producer and former Indie-label owner myself + a dedicated pirat, I can guarantee you, it has not captured the whole picture on what effects, especially positive ones, bittorrent has on upcoming artist’s, and their capability to promote themselves through it!
Besides, my friend, carefull with your hastely conclusions on Pirate Bay’s supposedly huge profiteering on website commercials!! Not even the biased judge from the TPB-trial really bought into that rubbish (I read the real trial-transcript on the original language, not the manipulated translation made public by IFPI). You risk making yourself guilty of the exact same allegations you have towards this article…
By the way “Peter”, barry is spelled Barrie – as in J.M. Barrie ;-)
What TorrentFreaks fails to mention is WHY “the flash bulb” and “what cd compiliation” are the most downloaded.
They are permanently FREELEECH on the site. Even people not even remotely interested in them download them just to seed for ratio.
I know cause i’m What & Waffles :P So this is unfortunately a complete BS comparison.
There’s a major point being missed in the discussion around how artists make money- licensing.
Jamendo has had the development of a sane alternative to the collection societies as one of it’s primary goals since it started. It’s one of the things that drew me to it as an artist.
Commercially licensing music is one of the main sources of revenue for mainstream artists and I find it puzzling for it not to have come up in the discussion- hence actually posting, which I rarely do…
So in answer to the question that was posed earlier, how does an artist like Rob Costlow make a living? He would have to answer himself to be sure, but I expect it is a combination of live shows and merch, which includes cds, but also commercial licensing, not to mention donations (check out Costlow’s Jamendo profile and you can see he has a steady stream of donators… not getting rich and famous, but making a living, that’s commendable.
And to those that insist that sharing=stealing, please recognize the difference between freely sharing and profiting from others work- if someone is selling bootlegs, that could be considered stealing, but freely sharing, that only looks like stealing from the Othodox Neo-Capitalist perspective that views everything through the lense of Artificial Scarcity (control supply, create demand => create a perpetual cycle of unfulfilled need)… but I suppose you feel the need to use peer based guilt to make us feel bad about our “sin” against the Church of Neo-Capital ;-P
I am a small artist .. in a rather new and unknown band.
If I could get my music heard by 10.000 people in the short time that P2P/internet allows .. I’ll be through the roof, 10.000 is a fucking big number!!! People tend to forget that when comparing to internationally pushed artists like britney.
Blah! Fools, what a waste of precious bandwidth downloading crap!
Speaking of music…the link below contains a fairly well-balanced article detailing the history of music and the impact the internet and technology has had on music, movies and more.
Very interesting read. It really puts alot of things in perspective but more in particular how the movie/music industry is failing to evolve.
Enjoy.
http://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/download-decade/how-the-ipod-changed-everything/article1133329/
Jonathon Coulton is and always has been giving his music away free from his own website. He wrote the Portal end theme. He has a lot of other great songs too.He did so well at last years PAX (video game convention) that he is coming back this year. If he is signing things, I will definitely by a CD. It will be the first one in quite a while.
yep with the webb and p2p software Artists now have control over all aspects of their product bypassing the RIAA/MPAA business model, and it was, and is, this that the MAFIAA is fighting tooth and nail, they want to destroy the artists ability to be able to market him/herself directly…piracy has nothing to do with it.
(anyone who downloads “B-S”, britney’s shite, SHOULD go to jail for a long time)
@BuggerMeButtocks
Yeah…Cut out the middleman and make the artist sing for his supper.
Like the old days……lol..
I second that.
Make a torrent out of your album. Upload it to TPB. Put a donation link on your website. Give gifts to the donators like hand signed posters or T-shirts so as to encourage them.
You scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Simple as that.
That’s all you have to do to drive the labels into extinction.
Evolve or Die !
What we need is the new “Single Strike” Law, that basically states:
Anybody who downloads anything featuring Britney is banned from internet forever and gets his testicles removed surgically.
@ 30 May 15, 2009 at 04:40 by Peter_Pan
Trying to take away P2P in order to keep unknown artists from being able to compete against multi-billion dollar corporations is wrong.
Copyright theft engaged in by multi-billion dollar corporations to deprive artist of their work is wrong.
Lobbying to take away the public domain and prevent people from doing with their own creations as they wish is wrong.
And since you ask, yes, the Robin Hood philosophy dictates that stealing from rich people is better than stealing from the poor.
But obviously Peter_pan, you are an idiot, elsewise you would know that many of these bands are releasing their music on Bittorrent for free. They have authorized the download, and even if they haven’t copyright infringement is not theft. Copyright theft is when you claim someone else’s work is your own.
If you believe that your work has been copyright infringed to the point of a crime, then you should be filing a report with law enforcement. I’m sure they will gladly explain to you how the law works in your region.
What ? someone loves Britney Spears ? WTF ARE WRONG WHIT YOU PEOPLE ?!?!?!?!?
The only Britney stuff I haver are Punk and Metal covers of her songs;)
Britney? Are you kidding me?
Only kids who haven’t heard of Rolling Stones would get satisfaction listening to Britney.
What next? Paris Hilton?
Gimme a break!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(name)
need to be spelt with an “ie” (not in my family anyway).
extraordinary to come back to this page a few days after leaving my comment.
most of the comments resemble those of an isolated but fanatical religious community, united by a leap of faith, blind to all contradictions.
the strange thing is that pirating is by now a perfectly mainstream activity, does no harm to multinational corporations whatsoever – you may notice that bit torrent, for instance, has some very cosy deals with Fox, Paramount, Warners, etc. – but still its adherents believe vehemently that they are crazy rebels out on the fringes, sticking it to the man, without anything more than a few anecdotes to back up this self-identification. i suppose it’s a bit like evangelical christianity, or those right-wing libertarian militia groups.
@46 – r.barry:
” you may notice that bit torrent, for instance, has some very cosy deals with Fox, Paramount, Warners, etc. – but still its adherents believe vehemently that they are crazy rebels out on the fringes, sticking it to the man, without anything more than a few anecdotes to back up this self-identification. i suppose it’s a bit like evangelical christianity, or those right-wing libertarian militia groups.”
Dude, you totally lost me??!! Are U comparing me to a religous fanatic? Go f U C K yourselves…seriously!!
“…multinational corporations whatsoever…”
Well something it does or otherwise they wouldn’t spend millions lobbying congresses around the world to change laws LoL
And it’s not about “sticking to the man!” is about not being criminalized for doing what is only human like I don’t know sharing(pirating) and having access to information that could benefit the whole of society and no just a few chosen ones.
Just to exemplify most things(real things) that people buy today are form technologies that date back almost a hundred years, most enterprises wait for patents to expire to use the technologies and bring it to the masses I doubt that we would have the advances that we have today if everything was owned by someone or something.
The same goes to the arts when people say that someone was influenced by others what they’re really saying is that he/she copied bits and pieces from others.
As for countries the USA copied the Europeans, the Japanese copied the Americans, the Chinese copied everybody looking at those patterns I risk saying that sharing knowledge is pretty important for the development of good and just societies which some industries think otherwise.
Maybe if someone payed her she could buy some knickers. Cover that thing up, Girl.
the most downloaded albums on what.cd are the most downloaded because they were freeleech. The Flashbulb record saw “10 times as many downloads as Britney Spears” because it didn’t affect your ratio to get it.
Not that I disagree with the article’s premise, but it’s worth noting that the compilation was freeleech, as was the flashbulb album and everything else in the top *whatever* downloads. They were all staff picks, etc, and all of them were downloaded mostly for ratio farming purposes :P
Yet again the ‘industry’ produces a ’study’ that concludes something based on information you just’ve to take their word for for being accurate.
The only torrent site, tracker, that is focused upon is TPB, also in connection with numbers that for TPB doesn’t make sense.
Oh, but the last histogram was at least pretty.
http://www.prsformusic.com/monline/research/Documents/The%20long%20tail%20of%20P2P%20v9.pdf
I’ve downloaded so many music over the years.
And to be honest, if it wasn’t for the internet with the wide supply I wouldn’t be into the bands I listen too today.
NOTE: Britney sucks
Because pirates are brainwashed just like evryone else.
You human are just a bunch of sheeps folowing each other without thinking. If one fall of the clift the others follow.
No offence but many species are smarter than that.
@ post 55
“You human…”
Oh, where are you from then? ;)
@ ernesto: true true true!
@ 30
You make absolute no sense and your a complete moron.
Your point is no more true then our point, stop thinking you know wtf your talking about and your somehow above everyone else.. your seriously pathetic in all ways.
Lets see if we can make your retarded brain understand this.. ok.. CAR STEALING = Taking a physical object away. FILE SHARING = Copying numbers infinite amount of times.
If I could copy a car, I would.
F*cking retarded donkey.
Thanks TF, I’d never heard of Jamendo, but I’ll certainly check it out.
@Reasoned Mind
I know you have a vision. A return to innocence, in which we merry band of pirates will be tamed by draconian legislation, or by some technological silver bullet.
I submit to you a different future. One in which the artist does not need to work for years to pay back their production advances. One in which the middle man cannot pocket the majority of the artists revenue, for however long their contract lasts.
This is what the labels truly fear. Filesharing is a known risk. A ‘loss’ they cannot adequately demonstrate, but can at least lobby against.
No…
The thing they fear will destroy them is far more straightforward; they fear that the world will wake up to the fact that they are just not needed any more.
The day will come when artists can connect with fans, and fans can connect with artists. All without the ‘assistance’ of the labels.
That someday soon, the internet will make them irrelevant.
The idea that anyone trusts the conclusions reached by any company that distributes royalties is laughable. At least some poor schmuck who had a hit in the 80s isn’t going to NOT get his 280 bucks because of this particular conclusion. That’s the ONLY positive way to look at this study. But not to worry. We’ll still download exactly the opposite of what they think we do and they will assume they are correct. Where did they get their stats that day? From whatever ripoff torrent site was gaming google successfully that particular day?
Only the mentally challenged and those one-week-fresh to the Internets go to those sites. And strangely enough, those tend to be the same people with a VERY limited “sphere” of taste and culture. No offense to anyone living in a trailer.
Not so shocking.
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