Why Most Artists Profit from Piracy
Written by Ernesto on December 18, 2006Piracy is not all that bad for musicians. In fact, research has shown that less popular artists actually profit from piracy. This can be concluded from, and is supported by several studies. Frustrated as they are, the music industry claims that they lose millions a year due to piracy, but is this really the case?
Two facts:
We will try to explain these two seemingly contradicting facts, and list three factors that may help us understand what’s going on…
Artists sell more albums thanks to piracy
Several studies have shown that most artists actually profit from unauthorized sharing of files. They sell more albums because people have the opportunity to download songs and entire albums for free. A study by Blackburn (2004), a PhD student from Harvard, found that the 75% of the artist actually profit from piracy. Blackburn reports that the most popular artist (top 25%) sell less records. However, the remaining 75% of all artists actually profit from filesharing. The same pattern was found by Pedersen (2006, see graph), who analyzed the change in royalties paid by the Nordisk Copyright Bureau between 2001 and 2005.
But why do these artists sell more? Well, there are a couple of possible explanations.
LPs, CDs, DVDs and MP3s
The increased album sales in the late 90’s may very well have been caused, at least in part, by the shift from cassettes and LPs to CDs (and not just piracy!). CD players were getting more and more popular and a lot of people were exchanging their LP collections for CD collections. After 2000, CDs were not that special anymore, and the number of albums sold normalized (see graph below). It’s also likely that the decline in CD sales was influenced by the increased popularity of DVDs and MP3s.
This argument is also mentioned in a research paper by Hong (2004):
The results indicate that transition from LPs to CDs might describe the increase in music sales during the 1990’s.
And in a report from Pedersen (2006):
the period 1995-2000 represents a truly unique situation in the modern history of Danish record sales and 10 million units sold in 2004 is more likely a return to regular conditions than a sign of crisis.
This graph plots the number of albums sold in Denmark, and shows that the decline in sales after 2000 is not that special, but the uprise in the late 90’s is (Source: Pedersen, 2006).
The Internet is changing the way people experience music
Like we mentioned before, the Internet opened up a ton of possibilities for people to discover new artists and music. Not only illegal downloads, but also legal downloads, or paid downloads with the possibility to preview songs make it easier to discover new artists.
Social communities, and music services like Last.fm and Pandora also play a big role in the evolution of our music experience. Before the Internet, people had only a few possibilities to discover new music. Friends, radio stations and record stores are three of them, where the last two are in part sponsored by the marketing campaigns of the music industry. Today people are less dependent on what the music industry is campaigning for.
Wait a minute… the music industry and the RIAA always say that they are losing huge amounts of money because of filesharing. Isn’t this true?
Well, the fact is that there are less albums sold in total compared to some of the years when album sales were booming. However, it is hard to attribute this decline in sales to piracy (alone). From the research that has been done on this topic we can conclude that the effect of piracy on the music industry’s lost income lies somewhere between 0 and 30% (of the decline in sales, not of the sales in total). Pollock (2006) gives a comprehensive overview of these studies and concludes:
The basic result is that online illegal file-sharing probably has some negative impact on traditional sales but the effect is appears to be quite small. The size of this effect is debated, and ranges from 0 to 100% of the sales decline in recent years, but a figure of between 0 and 30% would be a reasonable consensus value (i.e. that file-sharing accounted for 0-30% of the decline in sales not a 0-30% decline in sales). At the same time there is still substantial disagreement in the literature with the most impressive paper to date (Oberholzer and Strumpf 2005) estimating no impact from file-sharing.
One of the things we can be pretty sure of is that the music industry is starting to lose control over their customers. A great deal of their income was generated by overly promoted albums and artists. It are those artists and albums that suffer the most from piracy. It gets harder and harder for the music industry to market artists to the top position of the charts now the customers heva all kinds of alternative ways to discover new music.
In conclusion we could say that music is more alive than ever before, that piracy is a tool to build a fanbase, and that the times when the music industry could dictate what we were listening to are over.
And that’s a good thing…
Sources:
Previously: geoTorrent.org Distributes Free Satellite Imagery
Next: ‘Mininova’ the 9th Most Googled Word in 2006
32 Responses
Great article! Thanks.
just watch as the big label companies squirm :) their time is almost up…
Excellent piece. It’s rather funny to see that you used the Oberholzer & Strumpf report, since for a recent paper I wrote for college on DRM and piracy, I also used that report. It’s very helpful.
Great post Ernesto.
If you look beyond music, almost every form of mainstream media is realizing that the only way forward is not to shun the Internet but to embrace it. This is complete opposite to Napster days.
Examples: Media powerhouses working out deals with YouTube instead of rushing lawyers to ‘em; New York Times putting digg/delicious buttons on news stories.
RIAA still seems very slow in realizing this generic philosophy. But perhaps for good reasons. Like you said – people are now discovering more and more music from little folks and thus buying less of mainstream hyped music. For RIAA they can’t figure out how to take advantage of it(beyond iTunes perhaps).
Cheers,
Zaid
wow! if that isn’t the most flawed/one sided reasoning i have ever read that jumps to exaggerated conclusions with no backing…
good point when you show the decline in sales… and greater point when you say that you can’t attribute the decline in sales to piracy alone. I fully agree. Piracy is just one small factor that has led to a decline in cd sales along with many other (legal) alternatives such as legal mp3 sales and other things…
how can you so easily dismiss the theory that piracy can nott be solely attributed to the decline in cd sales and in the same article show that smaller artists benefits can be attributed to piracy and claim that the increase in smaller artist revenues is a direct result of piracy?
75% of all artists profit from file sharing?…hahahahahahaha
you can’t have your cake and eat it too…
sad thing is people are buying this bull shit as truth and research with all your flawed and insignificant citations that are just claims to expertise, but lack consistency with the research… lameness, dudes
big surprise this is being posted on a torrent site… you pay these guys to crunch some numbers to make it look like file sharing is good?
RIAA sucks balls and they don’t know what they are doing, but it looks like you guys do too, just on the opposite side of the fence
[quote comment="30617"]
RIAA sucks balls and they don’t know what they are doing, but it looks like you guys do too, just on the opposite side of the fence[/quote]
Exactly, but the thing is.. I’m trying to make a point here….
And although the data are debatable, there’s a lot of truth in there as well. The RIAA is paid to lobby for the music industry, I stand at the other side of the fence.. for free!
Piracy isn’t the solution, but the fact is that things need to change, and the music industry will have to “adapt”.
This post has all the signs of having been written by a college student.
Underground and Indie Artists would obviously make more money if illegal filesharing didn’t exist. And let me tell you, these artists need to be properly paid for the work they do. The average member of a regularly touring mid-tier rock band in his mid 20’s that sells 30 to 50,000 thousand records makes around 20-30k a year. The average life span of bands and musicians careers are very short. You try living off of that, it doesn’t go very far.
As the CD becomes more and more extinct legitimate downloads will be come even more key to an artist’s success.
What filesharing has done is turn a greater percentage of people into heavy music listeners, so much so that they could never in a million years afford to shell out $10-$18 dollars for every album they want to listen to.
Thats where I think services like Yahoo Music Unlimited, Rhapsody, and Emusic come in. Yahoo and Rhapsody are great services but they are under the shackles of Microsoft’s DRM and won’t play on Ipods. Emusic doesn’t have an extensive enough catalog.
A monthly unlimited music subscription without DRM for heavy music listeners and the ability to buy tracks ala carte for those who aren’t would be a great solution.
Free file trading sites suck and take way too much time (unless you are in college) There is a definite value in these subscription services in that they allow you to have access to almost all published music on demand and don’t have to bullshit around with limewire or IRC. Not to mention that you are actually paying someone for the work that they do.
I personally use Yahoo and love their streaming service, but wish they’d come up with a DRM free download subscription plan.
The recording industry is the biggest bunch of old men crybabies one can ever meet.
They have abused both artists and their customers and have lived high on the hog for ever.
Well the game is over.
Technology bypasses your control.
Most people have no trouble supporting artists it is the record companies they have trouble with.
Most artists only see income on tours on the road.
Think of it – with digital music you can sell music 24 hours a day with little cost – no factories , no covers , no blanks , no shipping and no record stores to share it with.
And this is 24 hours a day.
Nickle and dime people to death like the banks with service charges.
And you can promote smaller artists at little cost to boot.
The game is over. Get used to it.
“I stand at the other side of the fence.. for free!”
I assume that you pirate music. If this assumption is correct then, while not being paid, you feel the need to justify what is classifiable as theft. You gain financially by concluding (quite falsely) that there is absolutely nothing wrong with music piracy.
That’s a good article Ernesto, thanks for taking the time to analyse all those studies.
Very interesting, supports many of my theories as well. I still have one theory that needs to be proven :)
I think the downloading might have increased the sale in used records. If you feel like the album wasn’t as good as you expected or if you just want to buy the record instead of “stealing” it, there is a good chance that you buy it used since they cost less.
I myself have been buying more used CDs in the past two or three years. I have the album on my computer and when I find it almost as good as new, but for half the price or less, I feel like; “yeah, why not buy it, it was pretty good after all”.
Thing now is that since it’s used, it only count ones as sold. If I would later re-sell it and some else would buy it, the statistics still say that only one CD was ever bought. It’s just a theory, but I feel it has some context =)
I actually run a distribution company we wholesale music CD’s to indie record stores. And we have been up and running since 2000. It was only when downloading became fully available that CD sales truely dropped and we saw a big change.. This is according to us and to the stores.. You argue that it allows people to sample the music more by downloading. This is the duty of a RECORD LABEL to promote its bands, artists via samplers, 1 or 2 mp3’s, free radio listening stations, press to radio, CD SAMPLERS, videoclips etc.. If a band does not have a label then it is up to the band to try and play as many shows as possible or to do whatever needed to spread their name around. I and if you ask any record label and indie store can confirm to you that CD sales have dropped greatly.
SO AGAIN IF YOU ARGUE IT ALLOWS PEOPLE TO SAMPLE MORE SONGS WELL YOU CAN GO TO A LABELS WEBSITE OR A BANDS WEBSITE DOWNLOAD AN MP3 AND SEE IF YOU LIKE IT. SIMILAR TO BOOKS YOU GO TO A BOOK STORE BROWSE THROUGH FOR A FEW MINUTES IF YOU LIKE YOU BUY. TO BE ABLE TO FULLY DOWNLOAD AN ALBUM IS LIKE SAYING I WILL READ THIS BOOK IN THE BOOKSTORE AND THEN BUY IT AFTER(THIS I AM SURE NEVER HAPPENS)
[quote comment="30647"]“I stand at the other side of the fence.. for free!”
I assume that you pirate music. If this assumption is correct then, while not being paid, you feel the need to justify what is classifiable as theft. You gain financially by concluding (quite falsely) that there is absolutely nothing wrong with music piracy.[/quote]
My point in the article is that piracy is not just about financial gain. And no, I don’t pirate anything, so it is more than just some kind of a cognitive dissonance process.
[quote comment="30627"]This post has all the signs of having been written by a college student.
Free file trading sites suck and take way too much time (unless you are in college) There is a definite value in these subscription services in that they allow you to have access to almost all published music on demand and don’t have to bullshit around with limewire or IRC. Not to mention that you are actually paying someone for the work that they do.
[/quote]
Free file-sharing sites suck? Maybe you oughta cash in that KaZaA / AOL combo package you seem to have going on and step up to the plate with the rest of the big boys.
Limewire & IRC”? Pfft please, I just ate breakfast. LAst time I checked the site was called “TorrentFreak,” as in BitTorrent, for a reason…..
BitTorrent + OINK = MUSIC HEAVEN
Try it sometime, you just may be so surprised you’ll want to go back to file-sharing “college”
Nice article BTW Big E,
[quote comment="30627"] a bunch of stuff [/quote]
Most of which I agree with, and probably to a degree more than other responses.
But for me, if I can get even 3 real fans out of every 10 that steal my music, then why not. Even if those 3 fans don’t end up paying $10 or whatever I sell my music for, 3 real fans, that share your music, go to your shows, talk you up, blog about you etc. is worth far more to me than the $30 dollars I would have gained from them first buying the CD and then becoming fans. Maybe they just couldn’t afford it.
My POV is that it eliminates the barrier to try something – no cost, no risk. The assumption is that all those people stealing your music would have bought it otherwise and that’s simply not the case.
Artists should start looking at free music, legally or illegally obtained, as the filter that identifies true fans from the masses and then find ways to target those people.
A few facts that not a single one of you stated
1. How many people in filesharing have very good reason to be pissed at the recordcompanies? Do you really think that this is all kids sharing here. Most of the adults that are using filesharing have spent thousands of dollars over the years on records, that the recordcompanies push on them. Often you will hear two or three songs that may sound good and/or are catchy. Then you go out and buy it to find what? Not a single other good song on the album except those two or three songs.
And why is that? Preselected good looking not worth shit artists, that the (oh so good) recordcompanies feel they can decieve the consumer with. Oh and lets not forget that the two or three good songs are probably covers of something you allready own. Or something premade by someone else (who’s a good artist), that didn’t have quite the right look for the guys in charge.
2. You talk about legit online subscriptions and downloads. Have you ever really listened to the difference in the quality between those and CD quality?
Why the hell should I (or anyone else) pay full price or more for some crappy version of something I may like, and let’s not forget, that in the process I get my rigths torn away by some kind of DRM protection, that restricts my personal use of those tracks.
I’ll buy music online when there is no DRM and I get lossless. At this rate, that will probably by the time I’m 80 and don’t have any money to spend on music.
Until the recordindustry cleans up their act, I say GO BITTORRENT
If only all had this point of view, then the consumer would have forced his rights back ages ago. But no now the dear industry just start buying more and more of BitTorrent instead of actually doing some good.
I still by CDs BTW (After sampling every single song)
Screw the MAFIAA
[quote comment="30623"][quote comment="30617"]
And although the data are debatable, there’s a lot of truth in there as well. The RIAA is paid to lobby for the music industry, I stand at the other side of the fence.. for free!
Piracy isn’t the solution, but the fact is that things need to change, and the music industry will have to “adapt”.[/quote]
what a load of BS. your “side of the fence” does not make a distinction between the music industry crisis and the artist/musician crisis. Two very different issues that get blatantly entangled so often it’s nearly criminal. The music industry moguls are flipping because their castle and stranglehold is in shambles and their consumerism empire is falling appart. The magnates are losing money by the truckload and they went on a suing spree, everybody hates them, OK. beating a dead horse there.
that’s got nothing to do with the fact that EVERY musician is losing potential revenue in one way or another nowadays that any one is able to use bitTorrent to download a WHOLE DISCOGRAPHY in a handful of clicks. Easy, painless, anonymous, convenient, and free of charge. if my job is to be a musician and the service I offer is being obtained without any retribution, well, what a f**king disapointment. You may like my independent music but you are no less a prick for what you do. And this has little to do with the middle-man industry changing its ways, “adapting” as you hypocritically say.
CDs are ripped, booklets are scanned, DVDs get decoded and seeded. Next thing you know, kids are filming gigs on their cellphones and recording on their iPods. There’s no stopping it. The music industry may be tumbling to its grave but so is the musician career itself. I rather see you try and make sense of that phenomenon than read that shizz about ‘piracy breathing live into the music scene’.
that was a reply to Roberto, not Rork.
[quote comment="31045"][quote comment="30623"][quote comment="30617"]
And although the data are debatable, there’s a lot of truth in there as well. The RIAA is paid to lobby for the music industry, I stand at the other side of the fence.. for free!
Piracy isn’t the solution, but the fact is that things need to change, and the music industry will have to “adapt”.[/quote]
what a load of BS. your “side of the fence” does not make a distinction between the music industry crisis and the artist/musician crisis. Two very different issues that get blatantly entangled so often it’s nearly criminal. The music industry moguls are flipping because their castle and stranglehold is in shambles and their consumerism empire is falling appart. The magnates are losing money by the truckload and they went on a suing spree, everybody hates them, OK. beating a dead horse there.
that’s got nothing to do with the fact that EVERY musician is losing potential revenue in one way or another nowadays that any one is able to use bitTorrent to download a WHOLE DISCOGRAPHY in a handful of clicks. Easy, painless, anonymous, convenient, and free of charge. if my job is to be a musician and the service I offer is being obtained without any retribution, well, what a f**king disapointment. You may like my independent music but you are no less a prick for what you do. And this has little to do with the middle-man industry changing its ways, “adapting” as you hypocritically say.
CDs are ripped, booklets are scanned, DVDs get decoded and seeded. Next thing you know, kids are filming gigs on their cellphones and recording on their iPods. There’s no stopping it. The music industry may be tumbling to its grave but so is the musician career itself. I rather see you try and make sense of that phenomenon than read that shizz about ‘piracy breathing live into the music scene’.[/quote]
maybe you’re right, probably not. fact is, as you say, there’s no stopping it. filesharing will grow because it’s now part of common culture. artists will have to adopt progressive strategies if they want (depend on) monetary remuneration. e.g. building a fan-base (arctic monkeys), donation system (invest in musicians you want to listen to), merchandise, live concerts .. sooner or later alternative ways of reconciliation will evolve.
careers are not ruined, there’s just a shift in time when revenue starts. if you’re talented you’ll get a piece of the cake.
I agree with Xtripit. I’m not spending $$$ until I’m sure I’m going to like what I buy. Crap from “legal subscription” services are DRMed up the wazoo, lossy as hell and sound terrible, and are worth squat. I’d pay 25 cents for those “samplers” maybe, not a buck.
Chris clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. You don’t need to be a college student with too much time on your hands to know where to get songs. File “trading”, my ass. Nobody TRADES these songs, I don’t spend a dime nor have to offer something else in return (”trade”) to get what I want.
rork’s whinging is off base too. Every download is not a “lost sale”. Obviously according to your thinking book stores shouldn’t let customers open anything before buying. Pfft. I’ve got a band with an indie label myself, what aquietrevolution said is the actual reality:
[quote comment="30873"]
But for me, if I can get even 3 real fans out of every 10 that steal my music, then why not. Even if those 3 fans don’t end up paying $10 or whatever I sell my music for, 3 real fans, that share your music, go to your shows, talk you up, blog about you etc. is worth far more to me than the $30 dollars I would have gained from them first buying the CD and then becoming fans. Maybe they just couldn’t afford it.
My POV is that it eliminates the barrier to try something – no cost, no risk. The assumption is that all those people stealing your music would have bought it otherwise and that’s simply not the case.
Artists should start looking at free music, legally or illegally obtained, as the filter that identifies true fans from the masses and then find ways to target those people.[/quote]
EXACTLY. Tape my concerts, share ‘em, download em. The hundreds that download and then move on, they probably wouldn’t have bought them anyway, but at least they get to HEAR me. After they leave, the ones that are left are the real fans, who DO go on to buy my stuff.
“Illegal” filesharing is what keeps bringing more fans into the fold.
What bothers me the most about all of the responses here is that people either put all of the blame on the consumer or the “industry”.
Music is an integral part of our culture and it’s more than just sound that you can play over and over again. It can be an experience, it can teach you things, it can bring people together, etc. And while that’s all well and good, it brings me to my main point. The value of the sound itself has gone down. Sell something that’s more meaningful, like a real message (i.e. Rage Against the Machine) and you will create a loyal fanbase that will value your art.
That being said, the inherent devaluation of the sound itself can be balanced with bundling. Why not add a concert DVD to each album (and maybe you have four different DVDs that go in four different albums with different covers)? Maybe you could actually reward your fans by including tickets in certain packages, ticket discounts, a sweepsstakes to tour with the band, a sweeps to meet the band, exclusive concerts, access to an exclusive website where the band will actually interact with fans, etc. The “industry” needs to make up for lost value.
At the same time, there is a measureable amount of effort that goes into piracy. Why not give it away for free or a discount, and mobilize your true fan base to work for you? The people downloading music are often opinion leaders. A lot of the time, you can pirate an album before it hits store shelves. I know that an album will always need a “release date”, but a lot of the time between the album being finished and the release date has to be designated for promotions. Isn’t that exactly what these opinion leaders will do for you?
It doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong. CD prices (or access to music in general) are obviously too high. Sell them for less or give people a reason to buy them with added value. Just the songs isn’t cutting it.
I love music, but hate this political/economical debate. Simple fact that DRM is a tool to take back control of the Music Industry. DRM makes it hard for the average user to copy and share the music. There is always a way around security but the majority will not be able or too much trouble to do so. Fair Use is also a factor, if i go to a online mp3 store, the sound quality will be lesser and will encourage me to buy the cd from the music industry.
NO I WILL NOT BUY THE CD! I HAVE BEEN BOYCOTTING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS. My absence of buying music from those record co mpanies is my protest. I grew up listening to the crap that was churnned out by talentless musicians who where marketed heavily. Most the CD’s that i have bought in the past are now just junk thrown away. After the media blitz faid away, you hear the music as it is and may decide this is not worth $18. No way i would pay $30 for a CD. I will pay over $100 to see my favorite band live. I would pay for DRM-less, lossless digital audio of my favorite band . But no more price gouging. I will not pay for 3 songs on a CD that are “trendy” for a month and then later realise that they are lacking talent. If a musician is talented, then they should tour and make their money honestly, cutting out the music industry. “Getting Signed” was always the lazy way of making it big for the new rock star. But a majority of them are not around. Why? because they are not real musicians, do not tour, do not write their own music (ie American idol “actors”). Yes, I would pay for a CD, but it is well known that the artists only get about a $1 per CD. It is also Well known that it cost about a $1 per CD. Were is the other $28 bucks going? The record companies who leech off the artists and fans. WE ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND THE WAY THEY “CREATE” AND PROMOTE THEIR SALES ARE THE PROBLEM. But the little man, who does not have the legal power of the RIAA, are powerless. Except for not buying this overly inflated product. What is the alternative? No music, radio (which is crap), download live concerts which are not copyrighted, trading live music from the fans who “tape it” from the soundboard of the concert. I do not download copyrighted music anymore, not because it is wrong. because i do not want to be sued. but the joke is on them (record companies); Most of the music available is rubbish anyway and i would not listen to it for free! The big business of music is going thru a grass-roots revival and those with the true talent(real musicians) will be ok. File-sharing only hurts the non-talented musician who relies on the music industries complex sound studios to make them sound good. The real musicians will be fine, touring and selling their music on the road to their fans. THE MUSIC INDUSTRY DOES NOT ONLY OVER-INFLATE THE COST OF MUSIC BUT PROMOTES “BAD” MUSIC, WHO THE ARTIST DOES NOT WRITE, PLAY INSTRUMENTS, OR TOUR. The decline of CD sales and the decline of the music industry is a good thing for the quality of music that comes out!
As somebody who is into music that is what some would consider to be “underground” i cannot thank music downloading services enough for helping me find all of the music i listen to today. I personally agree with this article fully and from a person standpoint, can back up the claim that at least in my case, my downloading of music has helped artists. Basically, i never would have found any of the music i like without downloading, which means i wouldnt listen to music because everything on the radio is pretty awful. However, through discovering new artists through downloading, i can now give them money by going to see their shows, buying merchendise like shirts or posters, buying other releases that i havent pirated, and of course, shaking their hand and thanking them for making my ears smile.
Another factor quite important in explaining the decline in CD sales after the boom period of the late ’90s is the emergence of DVDs, which led many people to change in their old VHS movies and build larger collections than they ever had before. There are only so many dollars out there for entertainment.
More generally, the phenomenon of the past decade has been too clear: peoples’ tastes have been more sophisticated. Big breweries are suffering declining sales as microbrews take a larger share of the market. High end chocolates and cheeses have emerged as genuine forces in the marketplace. Wine and specialty liquors have exploded in interest. People were never as homogenous as they may have appeared in the ’50s and ’60s, when everyone had to listen to Elvis and the Beatles or whoever was the latest thing available in record stores and on the radio. People are far more diverse than corporate America finds convenient for marketing purposes.
Technology has undoubtedly driven or enabled much of this, the ability to be who you want to be. Not only can I go to digital radio or the internet to hear virtually any style of music I want (not just generic pop/rock), I am now listening to self-produced acts that are amazingly good and can compete with any major label for the time I spend listening to music. And when I’m in the mood for Celtic fusion art rock, or whatever, things that are inherently niche markets, I can do that. It used to be that I could only pick up that stuff once a year at the annual Scottish festival in town. Now it’s all available on-line, just pennies a track, with free listens on Myspace.
Arthur C. Clarke used to note, the impact of technology is overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long term. In the long term, no matter what they do to try to police piracy, corporate music has a market problem, made possible by the spread of technology–not just at a few studios, but with garage set-ups that can make any creative person, and their unique/niche flavors of music, sound like a million bucks. They no longer possess the sole means of producing and distributing the sound of music. And people everywhere are better off for it.
Actually, Mike, I do go to bookstores and read entire books there, and if they’re good and I want to reread them, I buy them. Sometimes months later. And if the best thing about them is their blurb, I don’t. So I can buy more good books because I’m not wasting my money on bad ones. I read fast – but you can do exactly the same thing easily in a library. Why is it that publishers aren’t up in arms about those?
I do the same thing with music. My favorite genre is _extremely_ niche (filk – science fiction folk songs). I can find quite a bit made available by the artists online (filkarchive.org, for one); I also get some from filesharing. I’ve found quite a few of my favorite artists because someone had some of their songs in a share folder along with songs/artists I knew.
I buy their CDs (or tapes) when I can, usually from the (small) publisher or direct from the artist. But a lot of the songs on various fileshares are out of print or never were published, so the sharing is the only way to hear and learn these songs.
There are people who get noticeable income from filking – not many, but a few. And even fewer who make a living off music, though usually not just filk – they’re usually primarily marketed (self-marketed) as folksingers. The Internet, in many different modes, has been an absolute boon to these people – anyone who wants to can hear their music and buy it if they like it. And tell friends, and go to concerts…word of mouth is the best marketing there is.
The “music industry”’s attempt to hijack that and make whoever they’re pushing this month “cool” is now failing, thanks to the Internet, and I’m delighted. There still needs to be a better way for listeners to directly support artists they like – there have been a couple micropayments-to-artists sites started, but they all collapsed as far as I know. But artists – real artists, who sing/play/write songs because they can and they want to, not the overhyped product of the “music industry” – are still going and will still go on long after the “industry” has collapsed.
Does anyone else think that the term “music industry” is the whole problem in a nutshell? Art shouldn’t be an industry.
Very good analysis.
A point i think is indeed important in this situation, is the freedom filesharing of music gives the users – one can download albums to find out whether it is worth buying or not, and then buy what IS.
This is exactly what i do, and i believe there are several others sharing my point of view. Another aspect is the fact that you still have the same amount of money as before, but the differance is that you can spend it the way YOU want, not the way you are influenced by media to do, and as you say, this gives benifit to those smaller artists unable to buy commercials on TV. YOU can decide what artists you want to support, or in other words, what artists that deserve your money.
In the end i just have to thank you, Ernesto, for sharing this, but please post this on other forums, or send it into a newspaper in order to bring the message through to those not-pro-filesharers!
Cheers, Teodor
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting!
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
torrents are the way to go. screw the music industry and screw metallica too for whining so much that Napster got shut down. I don’t have a problem giving $ to the artists but hate giving it to record companys
heres the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCkX0KcNwrI
I just ran your post via Digg. I know the post is from December 18, 2006 so some of the statistics may be outdated but the relevance of the information continues. Definitely worth revisiting. I put a link on my blog wylisa.com
white house man yes vacant sea key boy
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