If you were a sailor on an English merchant ship two hundred years ago and a black vessel flying a skull and crossbones sallied up beside you with cannons firing it would probably take a great deal of fortitude not to mess yourself. And if you were the owner of the shipping company and heard news from the crew’s survivors that your ship had been boarded and all cargo taken you would be devastated. That would clearly hurt your credibility with your clients. It could ruin you.
But try as they might, executives in the music industry are having a really hard time vilifying pirates of digital music. A Torrentfreak.com contributor recently posted an article in which he cast doubt on the propaganda espoused by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) which indicates that music piracy is destroying the business, at least on that side of the pond. Unlike the seafaring industry of the United Kingdom of old, it appears pirates just don’t pack as big of a punch as they used to. To summarize, digital music sales are continuing to rise, successful artists are still making money, but the music industry could perhaps be making a bit more. Hard to get righteously indignant to such lackluster stats.
Maybe “piracy” is a bit too strong a term for what’s going on. It implies malicious intent. But many artists are actually encouraging listeners to take their wares for free, or to set their own price – from Radiohead with the release of In Rainbows in 2007 to Matthew Trisler, one of our featured artists. Around here we insist that the creation of art is all about connecting with the audience. Some members of an artist’s audience can pay and others can’t, and we have a hard time seeing anything wrong with making some allowance for the latter group. Of course an artist ought to be allowed to insist that his or her work is worthy of purchase (the feud between Napster and Metallica a few years back is a case in point) and in this case the act of downloading the music for free is indeed piracy. Others just want to make the connection any way they can, believing sufficient remuneration will come later.
Musicians, whether you want your audience to pay for your work or download it for free is entirely up to you. But don’t fear the pirates. Most of them are actually pretty friendly, and just want you to know how much they like you.
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