p2pnet - rss feed: Make file sharing work for you
p2pnet.net news view:- Andy Lenox of The Cobra Punchers has written an excellent article explaining why musicians, including his own band, should give away their music for free.
His arguments are economic, not ideological. He starts from the sensible premise that file-sharing is here to stay. “Most people who download music for free don’t think of themselves as thieves”, he reckons, “they don’t think of themselves as pirates, they just want to listen to your music.”
How, after all, can you steal an endlessly copyable string of noughts and ones?
CDs, of course, are a different matter, but Andy figures that the CD has had its day: “With the music removed from the product, music only exists as content”, he reasons, pointing out how “the television industry… has used free, quality content to make money for years.”
But how can this be achieved for music? Andy’s interesting solution is to steal a march on those already profiting from all this free content: bittorrent portal sites.
“Musicians should be less angry that there are people hearing their songs for free and more angry that the web traffic is going to a torrent site instead of their own web site.
“The best way to capture those advertising dollars is to directly compete by providing your own content for free. If someone has two options, sift through a sea of unscrupulous torrent sites for your new single, or download it directly from the artist for free, the customer will download the content from your web site every time.”
Makes a lot of sense. “Do not sign to a large record label,” is Andy’s advice. “I would go as far as to say not to sign with any record label at all.” And who can, with a straight face, disagree? In the dawning era of ineffable music content, labels - currently thrashing around fruitlessly, apparently trying to drag as many of us down with them as possible - will be about as useful and welcome as a lump of Uranium in a wind farm.
Read the full article here.
Chris Ovenden - The Peer
[Ovenden is a self-confessed technology freak who says he always ends up writing about culture, or who is perhaps a culture nut continually drawn towards the hi-tech, he plays guitar, makes websites and teaches. Editorships of various on- and offline publications lurk in his past, “and possibly his future”.]
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
April 17th, 2007 at 9:38 am
including his own band, should give away their music for free.
Big record companies have been making money giving away free music on FM radio for decades.
Just sell a DRM free, properly mixed, high quality, lossLESS compressed track for 10 cents. If people kind of like your song they’ll just pay. It’s only 10 cents. But if it’s 99 cents and they only KIND OF like it they’ll go spend that 99 cents on a song they REALLY like. Your song will be an impulse buy.