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One thing that’s been bugging me long before I even started this blog is the whole stance on file-sharing. Namely it’s detractors such as recording companies.

What particularly pisses me off is the fact that artists claim that filesharing is “killing the industry” or otherwise blame their shitty record sales on it. One particular article caught my eye recently during a night of Wikibashing that involved an interview with Gene Simmons from KISS. Here’s what the old geezer had to say:

“In all seriousness, it’s unfortunate, the record industry is dead, it’s six feet underground, and

Gene Simmons. More businessman than musician

unfortunately, the fans have done this they’ve decided to download and file-share, there’s no record industry around, and we’re gonna wait until everybody settles down and becomes civilized and as soon as the record industry pops its head, we’ll record new material.”

Yes, because let’s just ignore the fact the last album KISS released was another Greatest Hits we didn’t need. Of course people are going to stop giving a shit once you start milking your old tunes for all they’re worth, write some new material and people will buy it. It makes sense to me.

Now, I’m not saying anyone who claims that “downloading music is killing the industry” is entirely wrong. It’s not right by any stretch of the imagination, but it has it’s advantages. I, for one would not have heard of a great deal of music I now listen to if it weren’t for file-sharing and I am always continually finding new music to check out, one of the more recent finds being Steampunk/Industrial band Abney Park. More often than not, I usually buy CD’s of the artists I like, so effectively, the record label gains one more customer in the end. Granted, not every person buys a CD after downloading it, but such people do exist.

Radiohead. They (sorta) got it.

What I also find amusing is that major artists are also taking the digital route. Alternative band Radiohead released their album In Rainbows online in 2007 for a limited time, allowing customers to effectively pay what they think is reasonable. While the digital distribution offer is no longer available, Radiohead effectively set the mark which other like-minded artists followed.

One particular case being Trent Reznor, frontman for Nine Inch Nails. Formerly a detractor of downloading music, has since changed his tune.

A blog article at the time had Reznor slamming the Universal Music Group for it’s pricing of Year Zero compared to Avril Lavigne’s then-recent effort. Reznor then went on to release Ghosts 1 and The Slip for free on the Nine Inch Nails website in 2008, with a CD version released soon after in stores worldwide.

Trent Reznor. He gets it.

To paraphrase a line from Thank You For Smoking, People need to pay their mortgage, so the business model adopted by these artists might not be ideal for everyone. However, with the internet being the Goliath that it is and the amount of music already available online (legal or otherwise), record companies have no reason to be crying poor if they aren’t adapting to newer business models using the technology available to them. Despite the RIAA’s claims that they provide an “equally good alternative to file sharing”, I doubt it’s enough to get people off of Demonoid. Like anything, they need to evolve, or die and make way for the newer, more flexible entities.