Sharing leads to more sales not less
Contrary to the lies peddled by the music industry, sharing or what they insultingly call piracy, leads to more sales not less.
I’ve said before that people hear music, then they like music, then they buy music. It’s important to realise that you need to go a step further than just allowing that to happen. You have to remove all the friction in between. — Andrew Dubber
I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. […] Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around. — Neil Young
You cannot like a piece of music until you have heard it, you are not likely to buy it, unless you like it.
You cannot like a book until you have read it. How did you come to read it, maybe a friend lent it to you.
It is not the musicians who are complaining about sharing, it is the Big Record labels. Musicians have no problem with sharing. They see the benefits internet has to offer to creative artists.
There are those who see the internet as a threat to their business model, they fail to see the world has moved on, they try to criminalise people.
Neil Young likes the internet, he sees it as the new radio, it is how music gets around.
There used to be an illegal payment system called payola, maybe it still exists. Record companies bribed radio stations, programme producers and DJs to play their favourite artists.
Why do people demean themselves on tacky programmes like X-Factor and Britain Has (not) Got Talent? It is because they crave for exposure, recognition, instant stardom.
Bandcamp has many pluses going for it. You can listen to music on-line in reasonable quality mp3 128, you can easily share, download is easy too, and often music will be download for free, or low minimum price, pay what you think it is worth, or a mix of all three.
For a musician being on bandcamp is as essential as being on twitter. People can listen to their music (I assume they want people to listen to it), can share with their mates (no one can like their music until they have heard it), can download high quality audio files, buy albums.
And guess what, many pay more than the asking price, musicians make a living.
A few months ago, we began tracking the starting point of every sale that happens on Bandcamp. In the course of looking at the data (which we’re using to help us plan out what to do next), we’ve noticed something awesome: every day, fans are buying music that they specifically set out to get for free. — Bandcamp
Neil Gaiman has no problem with people sharing his books. It leads to more readers. He was opposed to piracy, until he woke up one day to the fact that it led to exposure, exposure leads to more readers.
Paulo Coelho has no problem with people pirating his books, the more books, the more readers. Why write, other than to be read?
When Paulo Coelho saw a man on the street selling pirate copies of his books, he went over to have a chat, he wanted to talk to the man. But the man saw it as a threat, ran away. Paulo Coelho wanted to thank him for taking the trouble to make more people aware of his books.
He had a publisher in Russia, his publisher dropped him, as not many books sold. A book, or maybe books, were pirated. He has since sold over a million books in Russia, When he travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railway (the opposite direction to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn when he returned to Russia from exile), he was mobbed at every stop like a rock star. He describes one aspect of the journey in Aleph.
Paulo Coelho had only sold a few thousand copies of The Alchemist in Russia, his publisher was no longer interested, until a pirate copy was posted on the net, sales then became millions!
In 1999, when I was first published in Russia ( with a print- run of 3,000), the country was suffering a severe paper shortage. By chance, I discovered a ‘ pirate’ edition of The Alchemist and posted it on my web page.
A year later, when the crisis was resolved, I sold 10,000 copies of the print edition. By 2002, I had sold a million copies in Russia, and I have now sold 12 million.
When I traveled across Russia by train, I met several people who told me that they had first discovered my work through the ‘ pirated’ edition I posted on my website. Nowadays, I run a ‘Pirate Coelho’ website, giving links to any books of mine that are available on file- sharing sites. And my sales continue to grow — nearly 140 million copies world wide.
The Way of The Bow, a meditation on archery, is available for free download, as an e-book and as an audio book.
When people download music from Steve Lawson and share it with their friends, he does not think OMG, this must be stopped. He is pleased that they are taking the trouble to tell people about his music.
No one tells it better than the people who like it.
Steve Lawson does not like the term free, he prefers zero-cost transaction. An interaction has taken place, and who knows where it may lead.
If someone downloads for free, and does not like, Steve has not lost anything. On the other hand, they may decide to buy an album, may buy FingerPainting, a multi-album collection of a US tour last winter, they may attend a gig, they may invite him for a house concert.
Hope & Social give their music away, at least they do for digital downloads. For CDs, pay what you think it is worth, minimum price based on production cost. And guess what? They are making more money, and having more fun, than when they followed the conventional model of being on a corporate record label, screw the fans, criminalise those who share.
Check out Cotton Wool and Knotted Wood. That there is a low or free price or pay what you think it is worth, does not mean people pay that low price, or take for nothing, they will generally pay more.
Iron Maiden are pirated worldwide, and yet, have managed to earn themselves £10-20 million for 2012. It knocks on the head the lies from the music industry that piracy is killing music. Or looked at differently, sharing is the life blood of music.
