p2pnet - rss feed: OK Go: Pirates? No. p2p? Yes.
p2p news / p2pnet: “Big news,” says a post on the OK Go web site. “The New York Times ran an article by Damian about Digital Rights Management, called ‘Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat’.”
Damian is OK Go lead singer Damian Kulash Jr and below are the last few paragraphs from his New York Times OpEd.
"Luckily, my band’s recently released album, ‘Oh No,’ escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label’s parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we’re the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.
"That may be true, but we are also the sort of band that hasn’t yet gotten the full attention of MTV and major commercial radio stations, so those college students are our only window onto the world. They are our best chance for success, and we desperately need them to be listening to us, talking about us, coming to our shows and yes, trading us.
"To be clear, I certainly don’t encourage people to pirate our music. I have poured my life into my band, and after two major label records, our accountants can tell you that we’re not real rock stars yet. But before a million people can buy our record, a million people have to hear our music and like it enough to go looking for it. That won’t happen without a lot of people playing us for their friends, which, in turn, won’t happen without a fair amount of file sharing.
"As it happened, for a variety of reasons, our label didn’t put copy-protection software on our album. What a shame, though, that so many bands aren’t as fortunate."
And here’s part of what Coolfer has to say about it:
"Artists are prone to complain about their misfortunes, but Damian’s thoughtful piece … shows the conflicts that an artist and label face with issues of digital protection (can’t condone piracy, need file sharing to act as promotion)."
What’s an artist and/or label to do?
Also read:-
web site - Damian In The NY Times, December 6, 2005
New York Times - Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat, December 7, 2005
Coolfer - Hullabaloo Part 2, December 7, 2005
December 8th, 2005 at 12:05 am
So P2P is good for up and coming bands, but bad for Madonna…
December 8th, 2005 at 2:12 am
“What’s an artist and/or label to do?”
Artists shoud follow these rules:
A. Never sue or threaten to sue your fans.
B. Never allow your record company to do A for you or itself.
C. Be posiitve. Think of p2p sharing as the equivalent of radio airplay. The more of it, the more the demand for you.
Failure to follow the rules will cause the fans to ignore or boycott you.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 8th, 2005 at 4:25 am
“So P2P is good for up and coming bands, but bad for Madonna…”
Translation to economic speak: Competition is good for the innovators, but bad for the incumbents.
Nothing new here… Except that when we talk about other innovation we see laws such as anti-trust/competition laws that are intended to protect the innovators from the incumbents. When will our governments wake up and realize that Canadian creators need protection *FROM* the incumbents (major labels, major studios, convicted “software manufacturing” monopolists), not additional protection *FOR* them.
December 8th, 2005 at 7:10 am
Only joking!
Nice observation Russell.
The U.S. needs to protect the incumbents. Just about everyone else needs to protect the innovators.
Perhaps if the free and open sharing of information is sucessful without being stomped out by restrictive laws…the U.S. may just realize the rest of the world exists.
Wouldn’t that be something?
December 8th, 2005 at 9:31 am
I’m in the US, odd thing is I agree with this post. Only the US would be smart to protect the innovators as past history has suggested it should. It seems instead we are on the long slide to the bottom of the pile and the legislators have yet to figure out that tax income is directly tied to that position on the pile and its GNP. For such a small part of the GNP, the cartels have far more influance than they should have. So much so that the rest of the GNP will be strongly affected by these ill thought out laws that are so restrictive to innovation or new startups. The majority of the income comes from new business that are small but there are so many of them that they total up to a nice slice of the pie. Now there are tons of new laws, along with those that the cartels have figured out how to get in place, that will prevent the continuation of these new startups.