The news just dropped yesterday that the leading Bit Torrent site (aka illegal file sharing) The Pirate Bay and its founders are going to be put into jail for a year. The question that all of us who work with music and even sell music are asking is, “Ok…now what?”. Even if a governing body could figure out how to shut down The Pirate Bay (which is literally impossible), a new torrent site would pop up immediately. Heck, I can think of 5 other torrent sites off the top of my head that do a great job of allowing users to share music.
The question still remains though. Stealing music is wrong. I get that. I understand how much work goes into an album, how much it costs, and I believe that artists should be compensated for it. However, the major record companies (Warner, Universal, EMI, and Sony) are trying to charge more. The new Eminem single, as well as tons of other songs from these majors, keep charging more per single in our leading digital distributor, iTunes. iTunes has been great for your average user. You now don’t have to buy a full album and can get stuff for what? Cheaper. And iTunes is still a great thing. But all of us still want more and more music. And we are all broke. Everyone hates the radio and wants to know what their trusted friends are recommending. So how can we give the little we have to the actual artists and not some ridiculous record label executive? Read More
