Wednesday 6 September 2006

Artists on music and file sharing

I've downloaded and listened to Weird Al's Don't Download This Song and, just to be different, I may go and buy the single of MC Lars' Download This Song. Both make a very good point.

My stance on the issue of illegal file sharing is this: it's not right. I did it for a while, but I don't anymore (and I purged all those tracks from my library). The other side of the coin is that the big music companies are not properly embracing the web. This is probably because they're less important now. Any band with a PC can put up a website (or MySpace page, or blog) and get their music out to the world without any assistance from the music biz. That's terrifying if your whole business model is being the arbiter and curator of public music trends, and it's only going to get worse.

The RIAA are suing music's biggest fans and biggest spenders (check the statistics) and that's just not going to last. Judging by the number of bands that are publicly distancing themselves from the RIAA, it's not in anyone's best interests.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The one exception is that it's doing relatively well for the RIAA.
PPS - iTunes gets less money to artists than physical CDs, again thanks to the RIAA.

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