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Free music does not heave to mean that you are stealing it.
House | Tuesday 18th June 2013 | Osh
As Internet warfare continues to rage over illegal file sharing, and the millions and millions, of pounds being stolen by people across the world, questions still fly up over the morality and legality of downloading music on the Internet.
Sites like Megaupload, Napster, limewire and bit torrent have been at the forefront of these legal battles and many people such as those under the piratebay site have faced actual prosecution.
The umbrella term that speaks about the downloading of digital material is called file sharing, and for a lot of people this is something that they have done, despite its illegality. In 2006 a survey by XTN found that of the 1000 people interviewed 28% admitted to having downloading copyrighted material without ever paying for it. Within a few clicks you could download anything from the newest music album to a thousand pound piece of software. Obviously companies and individual artists are losing out in a big way to the Internet, which has started a sort of virtual war.
An act passed in 2010, the Digital Economy Act, focuses directly on copyright on the Internet, and any material that can be passed around on it. Institutions such as the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) sought help from the government, who began to force Internet service providers to identify those users suspected of file sharing and to take action against these on behalf of the BFI. As a result many of the major providers are having to crackdown, leading to restricted bandwidth, or total disconnection.
However, the programmes used to track users have also been questioned over legality, regarding the perversion of privacy it causes. As with everything those at risk of being caught are continuing to find loopholes claiming infringement of privacy etc.
In 2010 Ministry of Sound, actually served notices to some Internet users it claimed had breached its copyright by downloading music tracks. Notices were then sent out to around 2,000 users via London lawyers Gallant Macmillan demanding a compensation payment of around £350 in order to avoid legal action being taken against them. However, again, many users challenged these claims by Ministry of Sound, stating either their innocence or challenging the legality of the action taken in examining their Internet activity.
The obvious damage that downloading music causes is obvious, but because you have downloaded music does not mean that you are necessarily in the wrong. Giving music out for free is one of the best marketing techniques there is, and has been used by hundreds and thousands of artists. Just because it is free does not make it illegal. Although it is not a good thing, even the downloading of music illegally has allowed for the huge spread of media around the world increasing the popularity of certain artists and even breaking some artists into the industry. They may not have been receiving the money from some music sales, but the publicity that the artists are receiving must be worth something. Of course for incredibly famous artists will probably not need the publicity, but then there is always the argument that they probably don’t need the huge wealth that their sales would provide. Of course I do not agree with illegal file sharing and all the arguments are entirely valid, but it is true that many artists have taken to giving music away for free.
Many blogs across the Internet receive links to music that artists have approved to be downloaded for free. In some cases it is hard to know what is legal and what is not, but for the most part the bigger blogs, and especially the ones with adverts will have been given rights to promote the downloads. Everyone loves something free and even if you hadn’t heard of the artist you would be far more likely to download something if it was free than if it wasn’t.
Here is a list of my favourite blogs that offer free music downloads:
http://www.liveforthefunk.com/
http://www.digitalpiratematerial.com/
There are far more, but this is a selection of some of the better ones.
Artists have begun to realise that to begin with, you may have to give something away for free, and even when you are super-famous, giving something away for free helps you gain and secure fans. The Internet is always going to allow people to ‘steal’ music, so by giving some of it away you are more likely to help yourself than damage your career.
Physical records sales are booming at the moment, and have been on an increasing rise in the last five years. People may be stealing more through the Internet, but the appeal of a physical object is still very high.
Some artists have even decided to just give away whole albums, or huge zip files, for various reasons. Space Dimension controller, a few weeks ago, gave away an old ambient album, and Four tet did the same a few months ago. They may have thought they would not have been able to actually sell it, but then again they may have just being nice.
Wiley, has famously given out hundreds of songs for free via zip files on his twitter. However, this was not solely because he was feeling generous. The record label that Wiley was on at the time, were trying to control the way he put out music, so Wiley decided to give it all away for free so that the Record label didn’t receive any of the money. However, Wiley seems more of an exception and probably can’t be used as an example of how giving away music can be helpful.
The war between artists and listeners rages on as people continue to find ways to download music without paying for it. This is always going to happen, so why fight it. Some artists have done just this and have decided to look at the positives of the situation. In terms of marketing and advertising, the Internet has had a huge impact spreading music around. Hip-hop and Grime artist have been using mix-tapes for ages to spread their music, and other artists allowing one of two songs, here and there, to go for free is working on a similar basis.
Musical theft is obviously a bad thing, but the ever-changing world of the Internet has opened up new ways to spread music that allows people to get something for free.
Words by Jim Roberts
