An amateur artist’s perspective…
A response to group blogging event for all music and musician bloggers. MW recently received a comment from a reader concerned about her teenage son’s file-sharing.
I remember this issue becoming headline news when the whole Napster case first blew up. That was a wake-up call to both artists and record companies alike. The power had been given to the people. The freedom to listen to any artist at any time and at the same time have a dig at the fat-cats in their ivory towers was the prize. It was a by-product of our consumer-driven, ‘something for nothing’ society whilst at the same time being nothing short of a revolution.
Off the back of that, I think as artists we have come to accept that in todays post-modern world, our music will be copied illegally – yes by teenagers, but also by the not-so-young! No matter how hard we try to protect our digital assets, there is a technology somewhere designed to exploit them. I have software on my laptop that will allow me to record ANY audio stream through the soundcard, browsers such as Firefox now have addons created specifically for downloading digital files such as video and audio from web sites and it is obviously so easy to rip a CD or DVD, even a protected one.
How we handle all this is the question. Do we get really heavy about it? (…memories of the whole Metallica case comes back to mind. That reaction seemed to actually harm the bands credibility – granted, it was a while back.. 
, or do we embrace the positive elements of it?
I’m not a professional musician, but I take my music seriously and I love my art. I will take any and every opportunity I can to promote legal filesharing and for genuine fans to buy my CDs and downloads, but the music business has changed beyond recognition and we need to move with it. Now is an exciting time for any artist who has learned to exploit the miriad of ways today’s technology allows them to ‘get the message out there’.
In conclusion, to a mother concerened about illegal file-sharing I would say to try to discourage the downloading and sharing of vast amounts of illegal warez and to try to educate their child about the pitfalls – Although, at the same time, bearing in mind that some of that activity may include the genuine recommendation of an artist to another person, who in turn becomes interested in that artists music and what do you know, the fan-base just grew by one.
Posted as a response to the Open Invitation to Music and Musician Bloggers – Group Blogging Event on April 16th
2 Responses to “To a Mother Concerned About File-Sharing”
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My thought on kids and music sharing/stealing is that it does take a village. Parents should not only educate, but give their kids some music purchasing power. We give ours an iTunes allowance that they budget the way they do their monetary allowance. They can even save up for more expensive purchases like a favorite movie download.
The free distribution (usually limited time deals) that some artists allow (eg. via Starbucks Song of the Week), encourages my youngsters to at least give a listen to artists to whom they might not otherwise be exposed. That’s how the village helps.
I went to a little concert by a local teen band recently. They were charging $10 for their demo. It had 3 songs on it. Too bad. Needless to say, they didn’t sell much. (Their merch was overpriced, too.) Artists have to be realistic if they want to compete.