Not according to Tech Crunch:
Michael Arrington doesn’t want to be lectured for “stealing” music. Is he right to be irritated by those who tell him he shouldn’t get music for free? While my first opinion of free downloading was “it’s ok if the band is U2 or on a major label, but you def. can’t steal from the indies,” it’s now clear that a lot of indie bands kinda want you to get their music for free. Hell- remix it and send it back!
Arrington makes one point that I question:
“Eventually the reality of the Internet will force the laws to change, too. One way or another the music labels will eventually surrender, and recorded music will be free. Until it is, I refuse to feel guilty for downloading and sharing music. Every time I listen to a song, or share it with a friend, I’m doing the labels a favor.”
How is he doing the labels a favor? He is doing the artists a favor because people are being turned on and will maybe then attend a show of said band, but i don’t see how the label benefits…unless they see some of the profits from the show, which is more than possible. Death to the label??
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 1, 2009 at 4:45 pm
michael's bloomberg
in the future, all conversations will be less than 140 characters, sex will be reduced to touch screens, and no one will make any money from being in a band.
April 1, 2009 at 5:57 pm
jeffrey patsayjack
if that’s your future, then the future is now buddy! or is that what you meant? hmmm..
the only way the “free recordings” scenario works is if people pay to see those bands live.. and venues pay their acts.. and the only way for those venues to stay open would be to raise covers/ticket/drink prices or take the loss.
i feel ok downloading, but i’ve been feeling a growing sense of guilt over it the last few years going into record stores and just taking notes on what i’ll steal later at home. since i got a record player recently, i’ve been buying NEW records and that has helped w/ the guilt.
April 1, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Matt Safford
Not to make this comment an ad for my own stuff (hell, why not?), but I’ve written about this in a couple recent columns.
http://computershopper.com/shoptalk/clickable-culture/can-lala-make-a-dent-in-music-downloads
http://computershopper.com/shoptalk/clickable-culture/when-does-free-content-pay-off
My thought is that yes, most likely, at least the generation now in their early 20’s and under, who grew up on Napster, Kazaa and the like, will always think of music as something that should be free. That’s the way they were acculturated, and it’s probably damn near impossible to change that.
The only ways to work around this are either
a) Make music so cheap, easy to get, and more importantly, easy to share (see link above, about Lala.com), that it’s more convenient that stealing. This is also how Hulu.com works for TV, and it’s probably the way of the future. Convenience is the marketable angle now, not content.
or,
b) Give your music away for free, make fans, and sell swag and “premium” items. See the second link above, about Nine Inch Nails and Monty Python. Both have turned free content (MP put a bunch of their stuff on YouTube, NIN gave away a couple albums and HD concert footage) into big money makers. Both free NIN records still broke into the top 15 on Billboard, even though they were available for free.
While that doesn’t necessarily work as well with bands that don’t have avid fanbases, anecdotally at least, I know it can work for unknown bands. The Atomica Project, a triphop-influenced downtempo contemporary group that I’ve been following for a couple of years, releases its content under Creative Commons share and share alike license. That means you can get and share it for free, legally.
They’re on an independent label and no one I know has ever heard of them. But they recently undertook their first real (though small) tour of the East Coast, complete with plenty of shirts for sale, and their new EP on a flash drive.
The group’s songwriter, Wade Allen, whose been in other touring bands, and been in the industry for a couple decades, was amazed at how much swag they sold on the road. He claims they sold four times what he expected. And the flash-drive EP was a big hit at $12, despite being available for free online, and costing more than twice as much as you would pay even if you bought the tracks online.
It’s pretty clear that a lot of content is moving towards free, much to the lament of the industries involved. I hate to sound like Jeff Jarvis, but the world is changing, the smart content creators will lead, the rest will follow, and the resistors who try to hang on to the old model will be pushed out of the way.
-Matt
April 1, 2009 at 5:41 pm
fiercetalk
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Matt. And sounding like Jarvis is ok, unless you start saying there’s no need for critics (a position he’s tried to argue)!
April 2, 2009 at 7:21 pm
amandamaria
never!
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/harvard-p2p-lawyer-file-swapping-is-fair-use–no-really.ars