Whats up S.I.T.H family, I don't normally get too serious on here but this week Lily Allen emailed me and a few other UK artists about something that is SERIOUSLY important to myself. MUSIC PIRACY.
You can read her fully articulate and informed piece below, but basically certain older, established and very very wealthy musicians / artists who have made MILLIONS from CD sales before the days of piracy and the internet and who now regularly sell out arena tours (which they can do only because of how popular they became in the 'good old days') have claimed that file sharing (piracy) is NOT a problem to the music business (well not to them anyway!). These guys have probably never even been on a computer/ipod/mobile phone LET ALONE the internet LOL, so i don't know how they're so sure!! Because the fact is that music piracy is, and will continue to, stop new UK talent from succeeding and coming through if we don't all do something to stop it. These old guys obviously don't care about the future of music, only about where to buy the next mansion house! its cool for them to give away music for free because they're a) already LOADED beyond belief and b) can perform the free music to 50,000 people a night at £50 a head and line their pockets EVEN MORE!
Now I know that almost all of my fans on here are buying music regularly and I'm so grateful to you lot, I'm definitely not complaining on my behalf here, I'm in an amazing and fortunate position and I am more than grateful for where my career is at and I know that the internet is the greatest thing out there and a massiv part of the reason for mine and LOADS of other new artists success, I love the internet as u lot will know from my constant twittering and blogging lol - BUT I am one of the lucky few and when I think about it I'm WORRIED about making sure new talent can continue to come through. Everyone in this world needs an income and the majority of artists chief income should be through selling MUSIC, I don't know how we make it happen but we need to bang our heads together and find a new way to do that. We have to all spread the message to everyone we know in order to save GOOD new British music and make sure that our kids and their kids aren't stuck with a choice of Radiohead or Pink Floyd to listen to LOL!! Anyway check Lily's piece below and get COMMENTING on this blog, I wanna know YOUR thoughts!! Once again BIG UP, LUV AND RESPECT to all the supporters!!
LILY ALLEN"I havent written on here for a while but I've taken the time to write this as I think music piracy is having a dangerous effect on British music, but some really rich and successful artists like Nick Mason from Pink Floyd and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead don't seem to think so. Last week in an article in the Times these guys from huge bands said file sharing music is fine. It probably is fine for them. They do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world. For new talent though, file sharing is a disaster as it's making it harder and harder for new acts to emerge. Heres a link to the article http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6828262.eceMason, O'Brien and the Featured Artists Coalition say that file sharing's "like a sampler, like taping your mate's music", but mix tapes and recording from the radio are actually very different to the file sharing that happens today. Mix tapes were rubbish quality - you bought the real music, because you liked the track and wanted to hear it without the DJ cutting off the end of each song. In digital land pirated tracks are as good quality as bought tracks, so there's not a need to buy for better quality. The Featured Artist Coalition also says file sharing's fine because it "means a new generation of fans for us". This is great if you're a big artist at the back end of your career with loads of albums to flog to a new audience, but emerging artists don't have this luxury. Basically the FAC is saying 'we're alright, we've made it, so file sharing's fine', which is just so unfair to new acts trying to make it in the industry.You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your arse off to repay. When you manage to get a contract, all those pretty videos and posters advertising your album have to be paid for and as the artist, you have to pay for them. I've only just finished paying off all the money I owe my record company. I'm lucky that I've been successful and managed to pay it back, but not everyone's so lucky. You might not care about this, but the more difficult it is for new artists to make it, the less new artists you'll see and the more British music will be nothing but puppets paid for by Simon Cowell.And it's not like there aren't alternatives to illegal downloads anyway. Sites like Spotify give us access to new music and different music without having to rip someone off - you can listen to tracks and see if you like them before you buy them. Then obviously there's MySpace, that streams music and helps acts like me get enough fans to convince record companies to sign us up.If this sounds like I'm siding with the record bosses, I'm not. They've been naive and complacent about new technology - and they've spent all the money they've earned on their own fat salaries not industry development. But as they start to lose big from piracy, they're not slashing their salaries - they're pulling what they invest in A&R. Lack of funds results in A&R people not being able to take risks and only signing acts they think will work, which again makes British music Cowell puppets.Is this the way we want British music to go? Now, obviously I'm going to benefit from fighting piracy, but I think without fighting it, British music is going to suffer.I don't think what's out there is perfect. It's stupid that kids can't buy anything on the internet without credit, forcing them to steal Mum's credit card or download illegally. It's this kind of thing that the record company bosses, artists, broadband providers and government should be sitting down and discussing. I'm off to South America on tour today, but i'm going to be writing British artists, saying just this.File sharing's not okay for British music. We need to find new ways to help consumers access and buy music legally, but saying file sharing's fine is not helping anyone - and definitely not helping British music. I want to get people working together to use new digital opportunities to encourage new artists."
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Comments
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Sorry, but did you "heard" of The Arctic Monkeys, how "old" they are and how well did they do on filesharing?
You don't have data to say that UK artists are going down because of "piracy". Take a look in the charts. The industry, oh, they have problems, but the music, the musician, the art itself? Do you really think?
jeezy, that's true but you can only get that close to a release when a record goes on pre-sale.
The reason people download illegally is because it means getting to hear music earlier than they normally would. They want to know they're hearing something fresh before it's out, in some cases it will never come out and is unreleased.
Like I said, the majors need to look at why people download music illegally and then find some middle ground.
If you go on iTunes u can listen to a bit of each song before you pay for it so theres one site you can hear a snippet and who nowadays doesnt have itunes???
I agree this is a big problem and something needs to be done to make everyone happy, support UK music and help new talent to progress. x
I've been helping a UK act with illegal downloads for a few years now and something definitely needs to change.
It's all well and good ISP's threatening the cut-off of web connections etc but in reality that's not going to happen for some time.
For starters sites like Rapidshare/Z-Share need to take some responsibility and make it harder for people to host files and Google need to put some controls in place for people starting blogs, because a lot of music is shared illegally on blogs these days, it's as much a problem as P2P in my opinion.
Lily is absolutely spot on about the majors sitting down and discussing this. If we want to stop the theft of music, there needs to be some middle ground, somewhere online where people can go to hear snippets of new music, unreleased music and upcoming music. It's something I've considered trying to get off the ground myself, but it's just finding the time!
I LOVE LILY ALLEN :D
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