In the course of my research, I have come across an interesting viewpoint in regard to the effects of music piracy on artists with relatively small followings. An article titled "Sharing and Owning of Musical Works" offers the insight that music-industry "superstars" are perhaps the only artists affected negatively by music piracy, or more specifically by illegal peer-to-peer sharing, which is what the article addresses. Aspiring artists, it suggests, benefit from this type of sharing because it can lead to greater circulation of their music and expose them to new audiences.
I have come across this concept outside of my research as well, although is anything really outside research of the music industry when you're a music fan? An electronic duo I listen to on occasion called Blood on the Dance Floor, pictured below, released a single in December 2011 called "Revenge Porn." When it came out, the duo posted the following message to their Facebook fan page:
Revenge porn is now on iTunes! Support the resistance and go get it and if you have no money go pirate it. Either way I still got mad love for you. ♥ Thank you everyone.
This supports the aforementioned article's idea that less popular artists might actually benefit from the increased exposure pirating music could offer them. Of course, it is clear from further posts in which they express desire for the song to make its way up the iTunes charts that they would prefer people pay for the song. However, the above post suggests there may be some truth to the suggestion put forth in the article.
Blood on the Dance Floor, album art for "Revenge Porn"
not bad not bad
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this is true for all people, but I find that as a person, I prefer to get my music legally, if possible, even though I know that I can pirate without getting caught. Since I'm able to pay for my music, I will always buy it legally if the price is not outrageous.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there is an alternative to piracy that forthcoming artists can take advantage of.
I agree, I get my music legally whenever I can. At the same time, though, I often pirate music first or listen to illegal videos on YouTube to see whether I like it, then if I do, I'll buy it officially.
DeleteIn terms of alternatives that forthcoming artists can take advantage of, have you ever heard of Bandcamp.com? It's a site where artists can post their music and then either set a price, let people download it for free, or let people set their own prices upwards of an artist-set minimum, which can be as low as $0. Also, it seems there are more and more artists releasing their music to be heard but not downloaded for free, presumably to discourage people like me from pirating it and then forgetting to buy a legal copy. I remember Sum 41 and Hollywood Undead did that with the releases of their 2011 albums, and Alex Day (YouTube musician) believes in letting people hear all his music before they buy it. He has a whole page on his website dedicated to listening to his music for free.
I guess the biggest issue in those situations is we're still counting on music fans to pay for the songs instead of just listening online forever. But I'm inclined to believe that "true" music fans care more about paying and supporting the artist and that it's probably the less "hard-core" fans we should be worrying about.