Reflections On the Less-Cool Effects of Filesharing 458
surpeis writes "This snub is an attempt to point the finger at something I feel has been widely ignored in the ever-lasting debate surrounding (illegal) filesharing, now again brought in the spotlight by the Pirate Bay trial. I should state that I am slightly biased, as I have been running my own indie label for some years, spanning about 30 releases. It's now history, but it was not filesharing that got the best of us, just for the record." (surpeis's argument continues below.)
I try as far as humanly possible to view the debate from all angles, and before entering the music biz myself, I was a strong believer in Internet as the driving force to develop new markets. Since then life has taught me a lot, and as said I will try to share one of my major concerns in this (hopefully) short snub.My observation is based on a lot of trying and failing, as well as being a moderate user of filesharing myself — mainly to check out stuff I read about but cannot get my hands on in the local store back here in Norway.
My concern is about this argument, which has been seen in most any debate about this subject for the last 10 years, usually formulated roughly as below:
"Filesharing will provide massive marketing to new artists, and drive forward a new and more dynamic music market."
I beg to differ.
One thing that has become more and more obvious to me is that the power of the market more than ever is still safely held by the biggest corporations in the music biz. I will try to explain why.
If we use TPB as an example, they have about 10M visitors per day, which gives us a good base for pulling out stats. If you look at their Top100 list at any given time, you will find exactly 0.00% artists that are not (major) label signed. This might not be very surprising, as TPB naturally would reflect the music market in general.
But if one starts thinking about it, it has the ironic effect that TPB is a driving force of consolidating the market power of the major labels rather than driving forward any new music. The conclusion has to be that "pirates" are just as little resistant to the major label marketing as any other person. Even though there are thousands and thousands of artists out there that want their music to be shared and listened to, they are widely and effectively ignored by the masses. In fact, one might say that TPB and the likes are countering the development of new markets, simply because the gap between the heavily marketed music and 'the others' is wider than ever, when the bare naked truth about peoples taste in music is put into such a system.
This puts a heavy responsibility on the pirates, one that I don't think they are aware of nor able to handle. The day we find the top crop of the aforementioned artists that are actually free to share on the top 100 list, we have a winner. Until then the only thing that we will see "die" is the small indies that cannot benefit from heavy marketing. Thus, more market power is given to the major labels, and all of us reading this will be dead and buried long before they stop making a reasonable income from selling oldies and goldies, radio play, publishing, etc.
The actual 'mystery' is why the major labels don't see this themselves, and continues to take services like TPB to court. They are, and I'm pretty sure about this, the actual winners in the ongoing war. The price paid is extending the status quo when it comes to growing new markets.
So, ladies and gentlenerds: Are we really driving forth the music scene of the future? Or are we actually turning into useful idiots keeping the arch-enemy strong and healthy while the suppliers of correctives (indies, free music) are effectively kept out of the loop? What could possibly be done (technically or socially) to provoke changes to this and hit the major labels where it actually hurts?"
What about private trackers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Evidence please? (Score:2, Informative)
He made no such claim. What he said was that file sharing does not help "indie artists" to be more known because as can be seen from tpb stats, most of what is downloaded is what people already know.
If he expects to be in the top 100 (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, filesharing does open the markets to new bands. BUT, the band has to be good enough to make it in the market.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So what do you want? (Score:2, Informative)
Thanks for posting.
If thats how you interpret my post, Im have failed to bring my point forth.
I dont even run a label anymore.
Im simply stating that the music biz scene seems to be more consolidated than ever, and I am aware (and thought I made this clear) that TPB is expected to reflect the marketing of the major biz. Im merely pointing out that this actually strengthens the "arch enemy" rather than advocating change...
Re:let me guess... (Score:3, Informative)
He has a right to make a profit, but my guess is he's not using P2P methods correctly. Few bands have, that I've seen.
I worked for a number of bands (as much as getting paid in merch, beer, and free admission can count as work) to "bootleg" their shows and distribute them to fans. Many of these shows ended up backlogged, and undistributed until P2P made it easier than taking CD-R's (burned on a 2x burner, back in the day) to the post office.
Some labels said hell no, and didn't let me record their bands. The smart ones realized it was an added bonus for their fans, and that people who liked that they heard ended up buying the music.
Major labels still haven't learned this lesson 12 or 13 years after I started helping smaller bands do this.
I could be wrong, but my experiences indicate otherwise.
Re:If he expects to be in the top 100 (Score:3, Informative)
To give him fair credit, Slashdot posted a study back in February 2006 How Songs Get Popular [slashdot.org]. Here is a quote from TFA:
I think this is still consistant with the submitter's claims. Calling him delusional just because he represents an indie label is a personal attack.
Re:I see filesharing as a New World Order (Score:3, Informative)
Great. That's the point. "Free" as in freedom software is meant to be commercial as in valuable in many situation including in use in a company. That commercial software houses started supporting the development of free software just shows how important that support market is. And before you protest "that's not what I meant"; this is really true. The statistics say that most recent linux kernel changes are by people who work fulltime on the linux kernel and get paid for it.
Re:let me guess... (Score:3, Informative)
So you don't think a sponsor of a band has a right to earn money if they provide valid services to the band? Nobody has a right to make a profit?
Should everything be free? Or do you just not believe that any companies should be for-profit?
I didn't say he has a right to ask a court to change the rules, I said he has a right to change the rules if he can find customers under a "better" business model. Why does that make me work for the RIAA or Disney?
Re:Flawed premise (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure I've ever heard people claim that "peer 2 peer file sharing promotes new music". If anything it's the opposite - you don't find music on p2p unless you go looking for it.
However the *internets* as a medium, primarily websites, e-mail, and linking, DO promote lesser known artists. Sharing music with a friend used to require physically handing over your own personal copy of a CD (or cassette) and hoping it doesn't get messed up. Or best case, recording a tape and handing it over physically.
Now, bands like The Minibosses which could takes years to spread through a niche audience using physical networks, can spread overnight by being linked to (and immediately listened to) from niche blogs.
p2p though? Hypothetically that made sense for a brief period of time between when the internet became popular and bands started putting up websites and myspace pages with music samples. But nowdays myspace, youtube, and band websites are how new music gets spread.
Re:Flawed premise (Score:3, Informative)
TPB is a music (and other media) discovery service to the extent people look at its "top" pages.
Last.fm is of course much more interesting as a music discovery service. For those with concerns like the author of the post, check out http://libre.fm/ [libre.fm]
Re:Flawed premise (Score:3, Informative)