Internet piracy affects everybody who creates content. It is just as pressing an issue for bloggers as it is for makers of films, television shows and music. Piracy prevents the creators of content from benefiting financially from their work, it makes publishers and recording/production companies wary of investing in new talent and new products, it reduces viewing figures and puts off advertisers, destroying broadcasting revenue and bringing in a dearth of creative or artistic work1.

Well, so accepted wisdom will tell you. Lesson 1: Never trust accepted wisdom.

In the real world, at least in the music business, piracy can do exactly the opposite. Piracy can help artists get paid. Internet file-sharing, or at least something like it, can bring more money to artists than any development since the birth of entertainment industry. The evidence of this sea change in the way that the entertainment industry is organised is becoming more evident over time – and the easiest way to explain it is with real-world examples of musicians who have succeeded by either embracing ‘illegal’ file sharing as part of their business model, or by moving away from releasing albums of recorded music as their main revenue stream.

  • The Arctic Monkeys. The Sheffield-based band had their big break not through shrewd marketing, but because they wanted their fans to know the lyrics to their songs so they could sing along at gigs. The band produced a couple of EPs on the cheap, as many fledgling bands do, but rather than sell them at gigs they simply gave them away – and encouraged their fans to share the music with each other and others on the internet. Through word-of-mouth and the fact that fans could easily get hold of their music, their following sky-rocketed and the rest is history. Without ‘piracy’, the Arctic Monkeys might still be an undiscovered gem, as many other bands are.
  • Radiohead/Nine Inch Nails. Radiohead famously allowed customers to decide how much they wanted to pay for In Rainbows, their most recent album. They also sold a limited edition boxed version with an array of supplementary content for £100 a pop. Sound expensive? Doesn’t matter – die hard fans want it and will pay for it. Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails took this further and gave away his most recent album away as a free download (admittedly, it was rubbish) and then sold supplementary tracks and bonus material to fans who wanted to buy it. He’s also recently got together with Tapulous to make a special edition of the iPhone game ‘Tap Tap Revenge’ which features Nine Inch Nails music. A number of independent artists are similarly finding that deals with computer games companies for the new games such as Guitar Hero or Rock Band increase exposure to their music while still being quite lucrative.
  • Jonathan Coulton. Jonathan Coulton is a singer/songwriter in America who started out with a podcast called ‘thing a week’. Each week he’d write a new song and let anybody download it for free. Then he put all the music on his website and started selling unprotected unrestricted MP3 files for 99¢ each (while allowing donations from people who’ve ‘already stolen’ it). Never heard of him? Doesn’t matter. He has a relatively small but very devoted fan base and is able to make his living from his music – which is all that the vast majority of artists are striving to achieve. He’s also excellent – check him out (I recommend Ton Cruise Crazy and Code Monkey).
  • OK Go. After their excellent self-titled debut album, OK Go decided to go DIY and made a music video for their song A Million Ways by putting a camcorder in the back garden and doing a dance choreographed by a band member’s sister. The video ‘went viral’ on YouTube and its succes encouraged them to make a second video – this time on treadmills. They received the kind of audience that A&R guys dribble about in their sleep. Again, it was only by allowing fans the freedom to share their content without restriction that they achieved such high figures.
  • Madonna. While Madonna seems to be the perfect example of orthodox thinking, if you thought that, you’d be wrong. Madonna no longer has a contract with a record company. She signed a deal, instead, with Live Nation – a live events organiser. Madonna knows which way the wind is blowing and knows that there’s no value in records any more. Fans will pay a lot of money to go and see an artist performing live (the latest Oasis tour is £45 a ticket, and I’m still genuinely considering it) – and the experience is far more memorable and entertaining for them than buying an album. The old recording business model has a band touring to promote an album released in the shops. What we will probably see more of in the future is records being released at rock bottom prices – or even free – to encourage people to go to live shows, where the real money is.

There are, as you can see, a multitude of ways artists can continue to make money from music, not by fighting piracy but by embracing the latest technology and using it to build fan bases and carve their niche. The On-Demand world is desperate for talented and innovative artists to entertain them, and the spoils will go to those who can adapt to the new rules and recognise where they can offer fans bonus material that is worth paying for.

The only losers from the move to a new music distribution model will be the Record Companies. Music Production has undergone a digital revolution that has allowed anyone with a few hundred pounds to have a full featured music production system in their own home. The internet, and particularly social marketing/networking is slowly on the road to making traditional advertising obsolete. Websites and online music download stores like iTunes and Amazon MP3 are doing away with traditional manufacture and distribution channels. People like Jonathan Coulton are already making their living through music without ever needing to sign a deal with a major company.

So who do you really think is concerned about internet piracy?

Update: Forgot to mention – Inspiration: LFaT

  1. One thing I’ve always found amusing is the record companies which point to falling sales and claim that internet piracy is to blame for their problems. I don’t think it is – I think the real problem is that they keep putting out rubbish music that nobody wants to buy [↩]